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COMPARATIVE 



aEOGRAPHT. 



BY 

lAEL RITTER 

VATE PROFESSOR OF QEOQEAPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF BERllH 



f ranslHklj tax i\t Mu at ^t^aaU m\^ €Gllqt$ 

BY 

WILLIAM L. GAGE. 



VAN ANTWERP, BRAGG & CO., 

CINCINNATI AND NEW YORK. 

1881. 









'881 



ihitered, ancording to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO^ 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States tor uie isastem 
District of Pennsylvania. 




FEBJ 1119 



TRMgE^T0R'S PREFiCE. 



The translator of Ritter's "Geographical Studios," 
which has received in its English dress the hearty greet- 
ing of our most cultured scholars, takes a renewed pleas- 
ure in giving to the students of our higher Seminaries a 
second volume from the pen of the great Geographer. 
The former work, addressed, as its contents mainly were, 
to the members of the Royal Academy of Berlin, was too 
recondite in thought and too abstruse and elaborate in 
statement ever to become, whether in German or in 
English, a popular work: but the present volume — the 
bright, compact crystal of Ritter's life — will pass into a 
general circulation, and will be recognized as not merely 
a simple and perfectly intelligible treatise, but as a mas- 
terly application of the comparative method of Geography, 
and as philosophical as it is practical and interesting. 

Besides the voluminous Erdkunda, which deals almost 
exclusively with Asia, and treats it with an exhaustive 
fullness, Ritter has left the world the volume already re- 
ferred to, and three courses of Academical Lectures. One 
of these courses is now before the reader; one of the re- 
maining two relates to the geography of Europe, and the 
other to the history of Geographical Science and of Dis- 
covery. Of these three courses, a distinguished American 
scholar* has said : " Free from excessive details, systematic, 
clear, bold, and fresh, they are better fitted to bring up to 
the mind Ritter, the university instructor, than all his other 
writings. " This praise is by no means excessive ; and the 
student who shall, with the assistance of a good physical 



* Prof. D. C. Gilman, of Yale College. 



(iii) 



iv translator's preface. 

atlas, go through this work, will find himself master of a 
far larger number of special facts than the size of the 
volume would indicate ; and also of a science of Geog- 
raphy, which subsidizes all detail, and makes it auxiliary 
to the comprehension of relations no less beautiful and 
singular than are revealed in the study of the other de- 
partments of Nature. 

The peculiar difficulties attending the translation of the 
Geographical Studies have not been met in this volume; 
in the University lecture-room, Ritter's style, which, be- 
fore the Royal Academy, was extremely involved, poeti- 
cal and inexhaustive, became simple, straightforward, and 
luminous. In style, Ritter carried neglect to the point 
of slovenliness ; and the finish which Humboldt cultivated 
so assiduously, he rejected as unworthy of a true scholar. 
The highly figurative words with which he used so liber- 
ally to decorate his writings, I have generally had to render 
with a rather too bare fidelity to a prose style ; for grate- 
ful and captivating as they were to his German hearers, 
they would look over-fanciful to an English reader, and 
obscure rather than illustrate the thought. It has been 
my earnest purpose to make this work fill a great void in 
our educational literature ; and its convenient size gives it 
an incomparable advantage over the voluminous works of 
Sir John Herschel and Mrs. Somerville; while in rigid 
philosophical precision, in method, in natural growth — 
not to use that inevitable German word development, 
(Entwickelung) — even those eminent geographers would, 
doubtless, award it the palm. 

The demands of the public may yet render needful the 
translation of other of Ritter's works ; meanwhile, the 
editor of this work purposes to prepare a biography of 
that great man, whose memory all his pupils revere, and 
whose life was not less beautiful to his friends than it was 
fruitful and valuable to the whole scientific world. 

W. L. G. 

July 5, 1864. 



CONTENTS. 



niTEODUOTIOIf. 

PAOS 

Introductory Eemarks « 

Solar System. Planets. Middle Position of the Earth. 
Figure of the Earth. Ptolemaic System. Copernicus. 
Conception of Geography. 

The Earth as the Dwelling-place of Man xiv 

General Remarks. 

Geography as a Science xv 

The Earth and Man. Geography. Scientific Definition of 
Geography. Geography as a Science. 

What Geographical Science has yet to accomplish—- xix 

The Earth a Unit. Geographical Treatises. Comparative 
Geography. 

Sources of Geographical Science xxv 

The Study of our own Neighborhood. Strabo, Cluver, 
Humboldt. 

The Sciences illustrative of Geography • xxvii 

Illustrative Sciences. Nautical Science. 



COMPARATIYE GEOGRAPHY. 

PAET riEST. 

THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH CONSIDERED IN ITS MOST GENERAL 
RELATIONS. 

The Spheroidal lorm of the Earth 31 

Flattening of the Poles. The Surface of the Earth, 

The Threefold Covering of the Earth 34 

The Atmosphere. Depth of the Sea. The Interior of the 
Earth. 

A* (v) 



VI CONTENTS. 

PAOB 

The Superficial Dimensions of the Land and "Water on the 
Globe 39 

Water and Land. Area of the Earth. 

Contrast of the Land and "Water Hemispheres 41 

Continents and Islands. Contrast of the Hemispheres. 
The great Coast-belt. Historical Contrast. 

The Position of the Continents and its Influence on the Course 
of History- 46 

Structure and Architectural Relations of the Continents. 

The Pyramidal Forms of the Great Land- Masses, and their 

Southward direction toward the Oceanic Hemisphere 48 

Pyramidal Structure. Hypothesis as to its Origin. Sur- 
face of the Moon. 

Situation of the Continents in their Relation to each other, 
and to their Collective "Whole 51 

Continents. Submarine Volcanic Connection. Arctic Polar 
Lands. The Polar World, America. Australia. 

The Historical Element in Geographical Science 58 

Matter and Spirit. Steam Navigation. Europe's advan- 
tageous Position. Natural Endowment of the Various 
Continents. Perfectability of the Earth. The Oldest 
Homes of Culture. 



PAET SECOND. 

A more extended Investigation regarding the Earth's Surface- 69 
Plains. Relative and absolute Heights. Highlands and 
Lowlands. Lands of Transition. 

Highlands • "3 

General Remarks. 

Highlands or Plateaus of the Pirst Class 74 

The Asiatic Plateaus. The African Highland. The Amer- 
ican Plateaus. 

Plateaus of the Second Class 80 

Lower Asiatic Plateaus. Lower African Plateaus. Lower 
American Plateaus. Lower European Plateaus. Use 
and Misuse of the word Plateau. Limits of the Lower 
Plateaus. 



4r 
CONTENTS. 7ii 

FAOB 

Mountains aoid Mountain Lands 89 

Mountains and Plateaus. Height of Mountains. Size of 
Mountains. Linear Elevation. Mountain Systems. Di- 
visions of Mountains. Mountain Chains. Serrated 
Ranges. Peaks and Passes. Ranges of Demarkation. 
Superimposed Mountains. Independent Mountain Sys- 
tems. 

The Eelations of Plateau Systems 104 

Geological Differences between Plateaus. The Continents 
with their respective Plateaus. 

Primeval Formation of Plateaus and Mountains 107 

General Remarks. 

Origin of Plateaus 107 

Intumescence of the Earth. The great Plateau Circle. 

The Origin of Mountains 109 

Volcanic Forces. Deposits from Water. Geography and 
Geology. 

Lowlands •••••• •■ 114 

Limits of Lowland. The Polar Flat Regions. America, 
Africa, and Australia, the Continents of Lowlands. 

The Middle European Lowland 119 

General Description. 

The Origin of the Great Central European Plain 122 

General Remarks. 

The Ponto-Oaspian Plain, the Great Depression of the Old 
World 126 

General Description. 

The Origin of the Ponto-Oaspian Depression 132 

General Remarks. 

The Depression of the Jordon Valley and of the Dead Sea- 138 
Description. 

The Bitter Lakes of the Suez Isthmus • 142 

The Altitude in Relation to the Sea Level. 

The Regions of Transition between Highlands and Lowlands. 

The Eiver Systems of the Globe 144 

General Remarks. 



Tin CONTENTS. 

Terrace Lands and Eivers in their General Character ..144 

Terrace Lands. Rivers. Their Individuality. Water- 
sheds. Territory watered. Falls. 

Eivers more closely considered 150 

Direction. Water-sheds. District drained. River Valleys. 

Upper Oonrse of Eivers 154 

General Descriptive Remarks. 

Middle Course of Eivers 158 

General Descriptive Remarks. 

Lower Course of Eivers 163 

General Descriptive Remarks. River's Mouth. Naviga- 
tion of Rivers. Sinuosity of Rivers: its Influence on 
Civilization. Sources. Double Streams. Cross Streams. 
Weak and Strong Currents. 

Eeview 177 

The Historical Influence of Plateaus. The Influence of 
River Systems on Civilization. The European Terrace 
Lands. The Danube Terraces. 



PAET THIED. 

The Configuration of the Continents 183 

Teleology of the Earth's Structure. Horizontal and Ver- 
tical Dimensions. Articulation. Strabo on the Articula- 
tion of Europe. 

The Superficial Dimensions and Articulation of the Continents 188 
Africa. Asia. Europe. The European Triangle. The 
Articulation of Europe. Its Extremities. Its Relation 
to the other Continents. Its Historical Function. Its 
complete preparation for the place assigned to it. 

Islands 203 

European Islands. African Islands. Asiatic Islands. 
Polynesia. Concentration and Dismemberment. Europe. 

The Eesults of the above Considerations briefly stated 210 

Review of the Old World. 

The New "World 212 

4merica. South America. Terra del Fuego. North Amer- 
ica. American Polar Regions. The Future. Conclusion. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The subject of these lectures is Geography in its most enlarged 
and comprehensive sense. It will be necessary to preface them 
with some general observations, which shall serve to indicate the 
scientific basis on which the discussion will rest. Our starting- 
point will be with Nature herself and not with arbitrary geographi- 
cal systems hitherto constructed. 

By the word Nature will be meant the entire Creation. The 
grasping of Nature in all its objects and all its forces becomes, in 
conjunction with the agency of Time and Space, the comprehen- 
sion of a great system. The inanimate creation may be repre- 
sented under the term inorganic, the animate creation under the 
term organic. Yet there is not an absolute contrast between them; 
for in both there is ceaseless progress, no pause, but in a higher 
and comprehensive sense a cosmical life, the whole forming one 
great Organism, in which the inorganic world, so called, is only 
the founHation on which the animate creation stands. 

To us, our own Earth is the most marked feature of Nature 
viewed on its inorganic side. To us it is the planet best known of 
all, or rather the only one closely known, the point whence we 
draw conclusions on the whole Universe, the resting ground for 
the glass that searches the Kosmos, to use Humboldt's word, 
discerning the place which the Earth holds in it, and prying into 
the mysteries of the entire creation. Our globe is one of the 
major planets of our system, all of which gird the sun with great 
elliptic orbits, midway in which is our own. There begins the first 
popular division of the planets, — those that are within and those 
which are without our own orbit. This is one of the most simple of 
discriminations, one which we inherit from the ancients in an un- 
modified form. Humboldt retains this primary classification. 

2 (ix) 



X INTRODUCTION. 

The external planets are those whose orbits embrace that of the 
Earth within their own. The minor planets are those whose orbits 
are embraced by that of the Earth. These are Mercury and Venus. 

The ancients, counting both tlie sun and moon, reckoned only 
seven planets. At the end of the eighteenth century another was 
added, Uranus, an external planet. Through the instrumentality 
of improved telescopes, soon after, four minor ones were discov- 
ered, Ceres, Pallas, Juno, and Vesta; and by the still more perfect 
lenses recently introduced, and the assiduity and skill of astrono- 
mers, the number of these little planetary bodies, ranging between 
the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, has grown great. Beyond Saturn 
and Uranus is Neptune, discovered mathematically by Le Verrier, 
in Paris, and seen by Galle in Berlin, the 23d of September, 1846. 

To these (now eighty) planets may be added the twenty to thirty 
moons of our solar system, and a number of comets. 

The middle position of the Earth's orbit is not without its conse- 
quences. The distance of the Earth from the Sun is, in round num- 
bers, 92,000,000 of miles, nearly three times as far as that of Mer- 
cury, the planet nearest the Sun. Jupiter, on the other hand, is 
five times as far from the Sun as the Earth ; Uranus about nineteen 
times as far, and Neptune about thirty-three times as far. 

The time of the Earth's revolution around the Sun is also equally 
removed from the extremes; its year is 365 days; Mercury's being 
87 days; Jupiter's 11 of our years ; Uranus 84 years; and Neptune's 
165 years. 

The daily revolution of the Earth on its axis is also of only me- 
dium swiftness, consuming 24 hours. This, of course, controls the 
periods of waking and sleep of the entire animate creation on our 
globe. Some planets revolve slower, some more rapidly than our 
own; Jupiter's revolution, for example, is accomplished in little less 
than 10 hours. This extreme rapidity seems to account for the 
much greater flattening at the poles of the planets than the Earth 
exhibits, occasioned doubtless during the formation processes, while 
those immense revolving masses were passing from their primitive 
fluid state into the more rigid forms in which we know them. Of all 
the planets, however, the Earth has most perfectly retained the spheri- 
cal shape: and the spherical form is in one sense a. medium form; i.e. 
it is removed from all extremes of angularity, and so falls in with 
the analogies which I am endeavoring to establish, springing from 



INTRODUCTION. XI 

the position of the Earth's orbit midway between those of the inner 
and outer planets. According to Plato, the beauty of form lies in 
symmetry, and our Earth is the most symmetrical of planets, and, 
unquestionably, the spherical shape is the one best adapted to the 
display of the largest number of phenomena possible. 

The variations from the spherical form, produced by elevations 
and depressions, are only of medium magnitude in our globe com- 
pared with many others in our system. On the smaller planet of 
Venus, for example, the mountains are thought to rise to a height 
of many miles, while five is the greatest altitude of ours. Accord- 
ing to Madler's conjectures, the mountains in our own moon rise to 
a height of over three miles, an altitude altogether out of propor- 
tion to the size of the moon as compared with the earth. 

In respect to the number of its moons, too, our Earth is no ex- 
tremist; it has but one: other planets, Mercury, Venus, Mars, have 
none. On the other hnnd, Jupiter has 4, Saturn 7, Uranus 6 at 
least, and doubtless more. The general law seems to be, the farther 
from the Sun the greater the number of moons; perhaps in the 
wonderful providence of God, to compensate the feeble light of 
those distant realms by the number of the reflecting bodies. 

Now, summing up all that has been said, it will be seen that the 
Earth is equally far removed from every extreme. This funda- 
mental classification, drawn from the place of its orbit in relation 
to those nearer the Sun or more distant from it, gives it a character 
which is felt and seen in many different things, and responds to 
analogies which it is not incorrect to mark. A medium is seen in 
all its attributes and relations: it is neither the largest nor the 
smallest of planets; neither the swiftest nor the slowest; neither 
the warmest nor the coldest; in nothing is it either at a minimum 
nor at a maximum point. And this very medium character brings 
the Earth into harmony with the system of which it forms a part; 
the symmetry of the one corresponding with the symmetry of the 
other, and specially fits it to become the temporary home of a race 
like ours, which makes the whole surface of the globe tributary 
during the short terrestrial life of man to his preparation for a 
celestial state of being. Our globe is certainly the only one of our 
system which could possibly be inhabited by man; and as his resi- 
dence, and as the arena for his culture, it is worthy of being studied 
in all its features ; no point is too trifling to be overlooked. 



Xll INTRODUCTION. 

As man looks for a center to the system which evidently pertains 
to him, and in which our Earth plays no slight part, the Sun is 
clearly the source of a large share of what makes our life desirable. 
Thence we receive light, warmth, and indirectly, and yet directly 
too, life and the bloom of health. Nor can men, even if ignorant 
and degraded, help seeing the relation of the Sun to the Earth, and 
linking, in their rude thoughts, the heavens with the earth; and 
hence, before all higher Revelation, the worship of the Sun has been 
the primitive instinct of the oldest of nations. 

Looking at the earth as simply one among the innumerable hosts 
of heaven, it, like each one of them, becomes to the imagination a 
mere point of light, a "star among stars." But, when we shift our 
point of view, and leaving the cosmical or universal for the special, 
for what pertains to the individual life, the mere point of light 
flames up into a great, busy world, full of phenomena demanding 
investigation and thought. And yet this world, so attractive in its 
multiplicity of details, is almost a chaos at the first sight; a con- 
fused and inextricable mass, so large, so high, so deep as to defy 
human effort to compass or master it. Science alone, the gift and 
the growth of centuries, can measure the field; scieBce alone can 
enter it and reduce the chaos to a beautiful and orderly grouping, 
and make a perfect picture of the whole; it alone can dispel crude 
ideas and give truer ones in their stead. To the rude dweller on 
the plain, the earth seems a gigantic floor, as it did to many a tribe 
in the past, and as it does to-day to thousands of wondering Arabs. 
The South Sea Islander, in the Pacific, takes his island or island 
group to be the whole earth; the world he considers an endless 
ocean plain, from which the Sun arises, and, when the day is over, 
into which it sinks. And even within the pale of civilization itself, 
the ignorant Neapolitan lazzarone considers his gulf the center of 
the world. 

As men advance in their inquiries, and, ascending the sides of 
mountains, look out over a larger tract, or find new lands across 
the seas, they do not outgrow their first idea, the world merely ex- 
pands from the narrow homestead to a larger circle, such as the 
Romans used to call their orbis terrarum. The conception of the 
earth as a vast, unsupported ball, careering through the heavens, 
was the possession, slowly won, of such great minds as Pythagoras 
and Aristotle, and slowly found its way among the ideas whicli 



INTRODUCTION. XUl 

whole nations accepted as true. Circumnavigators must sail around 
the globe and tell their story to the world before the conjectures of 
science could have real weight with the popular mind in a matter 
so remote from the crude speculations of the ignorant as this. 
And less than one oentui-y and a half ago (in 1727) another step 
was taken, and the theory was propounded by Newton, that the 
Earth is a spheroid and not a perfect sphere. Later investigations 
have determined that the spheroidal form is only an approximation 
to perfect accuracy, and that the Earth is a polyhedron, whose 
exact number of zodes has not yet been determined, and which 
may prove indeterminable. Bessel has assigned, as the great task 
of science for the coming century, to settle this question with perfect 
exactness. But what has been said is enough to indicate that in our 
knowledge, at present, certainly there is only progress, only ap- 
proximation, no absolute exhaustion of the processes of discovery. 

And just as in ruder lands each man looks at his own island, or 
village, as the center of the earth's circle, so the ancients looked 
at the earth as the pivot of the universe, the central point around 
which all the heavenly hosts revolve. That was the fundamental 
principle of that Ptolemaic system which was older than Ptolemy; 
held in the most ancient times in Arabia, Babylon, Persia, and 
India, but first luminously expanded in the proportions and with 
the dignity of a system by Ptolemy. Its outlines were, in one word, 
this: there are seven planets, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, 
Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn; each has its own orbit, in which it is in 
a limited sense supreme, but they all revolve around the common 
center, the Earth. Beyond the seven, and including them all, is 
the Firmament, in which the other stars stand like golden nails in 
an imperishable floor; the whole vast external Firmament is opaque 
and motionless. 

The Ptolemaic system won and held the greatest regard in the an- 
cient world. Mohammed established it in the Koran as a truth of 
religion. The advance of science revealed the falseness of the 
Ptolemaic scheme of the universe, and demonstrated the fact that 
the stars of heaven are not mere torch-bearers for us, and mere 
interpreters of human destinies, but are worlds like our own, our 
earth being but one of numberless thousands equally worthy of the 
Common Creator. The Copernican system, which was to re-create 
the whole domain of science, wrought this great change. The 
B 



XIV INTRODUCTION. 

Sun, according to tliis theory, forms the central point arourd 
which, and not around the Earth, all the planets wheel. Coper- 
nicus, in 1543, left this imperfect and yet fruitful conception to 
his successors to unfold; and in the results gained by Kepler, in 
1631, by Newton and Galileo, 1727, the Copernican system was 
firmly established. The vast improvements in the telescope removed 
the limits of the visible universe to a place till then unrevealed, 
and added inexhaustible fields to those which had been known be- 
fore. The number of the planets was enlarged. The list of determ- 
ined comets increases yearly. The number of the fixed stars has 
been determined by the extreme accuracy of such observers as 
Lalande, Lacaille, Bessel, Argelander, and Lamont. The great 
work of mapping and cataloguing the heavens has been accom- 
plished. Many hundred stars, supposed to be single fixed stars, 
have been ascertained to be double stars, and some have been 
resolved into systems like our own. The 300-400, observed by 
Struve, have grown, through the labors of Herschel, in both the 
Northern and the Southern hemispheres, at the Cape of Good Hope, 
and elsewhere, to over 3000, and the number is constantly increas- 
ing. Nebulae have been analyzed, and been shown to consist of 
worlds distinct and perfect as our own. Thus ttere is a steady and 
perceptible advance in man's conception of the Earth, of Nature, 
of what we call the World and the Universe, though each individual, 
generation, and century are but dimly conscious of this progress. 

The Earth as the Dwelling-place of Man. 

The Earth draws our attention to itself, however, not as simply a 
unit in the planetary system, but as the home of the human race. 
The physical description of the globe includes the relations of the 
Earth as a star amid the heavenly hosts, while Geography, taken 
most comprehensively, regards the Earth as the dwelling place of 
Man. From a geographical point of view, the world becomes to 
us the common home of our race, the theater, not of the operations 
of Nature in the most unrestricted sense, but the arena for the devel- 
opment of human life and history. The whole animate and inani- 
mate creation is tributary, looked at geographically, to the fash- 
ioning of the destiny of Man. Without Man as the central point. 
Nature would have no interest to the geographer; without the 
Earth, constituted just as it is, the races of men and the course of [j 



INTRODUCTION. XV 

human history could not claim his attention. The Earth is not 
only the best known of planets, but, as the home of man, infinitely 
the most interesting. The study of it is at the foundation of 
history as much as of physics. 

No man of science can fail to regard it with the deepest interest. 

More than a hundred years ago, George Foster remarked that 
European culture had ascended to that height, that it must include 
an intimate knowledge of all that is peculiar in the features and 
phenomena of the entire globe. How much more true is this re- 
mark in the middle of our nineteenth century! It is no longer 
European culture that demands this, but the welfare of all countries 
claims of scholars this knowledge far more imperatiyely than a hun- 
dred years ago. Still, it must be confessed that we are far from the 
attainment of a perfect science of Geography, in its largest sense ; 
the science which regards the Earth as the field of human disci- 
pline; the science of which what was formerly called Geography 
is only an outlying, rudimentary part. The compass of what it 
holds as its goal is too large, and its contents too varied for his 
grasp whose existence is hemmed in by narrow bonds, and whose 
life is so brief. And though there have always been detailed de- 
scriptions of the diff'erent parts of the earth, many of them remark- 
able for their accuracy, yet there has been lacking a knowledge 
of the principle of organic unity which pervades the whole, and 
the mutual play and interdependency of all the parts. The whole 
subject of relations was unstudied. And it is a knowledge of the 
relations of things that leads to a scientific interpretation, not the 
description of detached parts. Geography was. and continued to be 
mere description, not the teaching of the most important relations. 
Only now are we beginning to comprehend the true elements of 
geographical science, only now are the first efforts made to deal 
profoundly with this science, although the progress of discovery is 
still going on with unabated speed, leaving far behind us all thiB 
advances of our predecessors. 

Geogkaphy as a Science. 

The Earth, considered per se, is only a fragment of the Universe, 

of the Kosmos, in that wide use of the word which Humboldt has 

given to it in his celebrated work. The Earth is the grand floor, so 

to speak, of Nature; the home, or rather the cradle, of men and of 



XVI INTRODUCTION. 

nations, the dwelling-place of our race. It is not merely a region 
of immense spaces, a vast superficies, it is the theater where all the 
forces of Nature and the laws of Nature are displayed in their 
variety 'and independencies. Besides this, it is the field of all 
human efiort, and the scene of a Divine revelation. The Earth 
must be studied, therefore, in a threefold relation: to the Universe, 
to Nature, to History. 

And it is not only as a mere passive agent, but active, that it as- 
sumes this threefold relation. It is an inseparable, an integral, a 
working member in the great system of things. But higher than 
this, and grander than its relation to the system of things, is its re- 
lation to an unseen world, to an unseen hand, even that of the 
Creator. We view it not as the field of forces and laws and phe- 
nomena, but the crowning gift of God, displaying the tokens of per- 
fect adaptation to our wants, full of beauty and excellence — a 
revelation of Divine wisdom, in the form of a visible world. How 
beautifully has the inspired David painted this in the 104th Psalm ! 

In relation to its inhabitants, crowned with the Imperial gift of 
reason, the Earth is not merely the place where they may stand, the 
cradle where they may sleep, the home where they may live, it is the 
school where they may be trained. This is one of the first and one 
of the greatest lessons that we learn from the history of the race. 
The Earth finds its highest mission, not in its relation to inanimate 
nature, but to the world of intelligence — the minds that dwell upon 
it, the spiritual world to which it gives bodies. And as the Earth 
alone of the planets is adapted to be the home of such a being as 
man, so in our world of animate and inanimate things, man alone 
partakes* of a moral nature, incapable of being shared or even imi- 
tated by the lower creatures. The Earth was made to be the home 
of mind, soul, character. And Man was created to make this earth 
tributary to his largest growth in mind, and soul, and character. 
In this sense the Earth and its noble possessors are correlative. 
Each individual rises to his own appointed work, runs his own 
course, uses all the appliances of Nature, all the help with which 
God invests him, and then ceases from his mission here; but the 
Earth remains, the home of the advancing millions, helping them 
all onward, and granting them new power to fulfill the noble pur- 
poses of human life. 

Nor can this constitution of things be the result of a happy aoci- 



INTRODUCTION. XVU 

dent. Evidently under the supreme power of a Divine mind and 
will, Nature is made subservient to Man. That mutual working 
and interdependence of things, which opens to our comprehension 
the History of our race, cannot be ascribed to a fortuitous combina- 
tion of events. It can only be the result of Divine Providence. Had 
there been no wise ruling of the blind forces of nature, no subjec- 
tion of the rough, unbridled powers of the air, and sea, and earth, 
the human race would have become extinct, as so many races of 
beasts have done. But there are no traces of the extinction of a 
human race in our Paleontology. The constitution of the globe is 
incontestably coincident with a plan to preserve and perfect Man. - 
There are destructive agencies, it is true, but they do not operate 
on an extended scale; our earthquakes, and volcanoes, and great 
storms at sea affect but a fraction of the race, they are no longer 
universal in their action; while, on the contrary, the instrument- 
alities which favor mankind remain in force — the earth's change- 
less garment of green, the uniform progress of generation among 
subordinate creatures, the ease of acclimatization, and of transfer- 
ring seeds and germs, with undiminished fruitfulness, from one re- 
gion to another. The very agencies which, in the dawn of history, 
brought death, have been changed to auxiliaries of life with us 
to-day. 

The in vestigation into the relations of the Earth, in this respect, and »• 
into the organization of all the natural laws and phenomena in their 
bearing on man, his life and history, must constitute a prominent 
department of true geographical science. When Geography ceases 
to be a lifeless aggregate of unorganized facts, and becomes the 
science which deals with the earth as a true organization, a world 
capable of constant development, carrying in its own bosom the 
seeds of the future, to germinate and unfold, age after age, it first 
attains the unity and wholeness of a science, and shows that it 
grows from a living root ; it becomes capable of systematic exposi- 
tion, and takes its true place in the circle of sister sciences. Phi- 
losophy gladly grants it a share in its own domain, and permits it 
to indulge in those soaring speculations, which it used to be thought 
that so simple a thing as Geography might not enjoy. Yet, it must not 
be denied that there has for some time been felt a need of bringing 
tlie earth, as an organization, more into the light of scientific in- 
vestigation. The study of final causes, the tracing of infinite • 
B* 3 



XVIU INTRODUCTION. 

wisdom in the works of the Creator, the theories touching the first 
issue of all things, have grown out of this necessity. Many errors 
have, doubtless, drifted in during the course of these speculations, 
man has undertaken to measure the Divine plan with most imper- 
fect data, and the illusion has been too fondly cherished of attain- 
ing final and profound results while men were scarcely in the pos- 
session of the elements of knowledge. It is for us, therefore, to 
enter upon our inquiries with investigation rather than theory, to 
test the knowledge of which tradition has put us in possession, and 
to advance, as we may, to the new and the unexplored. 

Man is the first token that we meet, that our study of the earth 
must contemplate it as an organized whole, its unity consummating 
in him. As every individual must, in his own career, epitomize the 
history of the race, childhood, youth, manhood, and decrepitude, so 
each man mirrors in his own life the locality where he lives. 
Whether dwelling in the North or in the South, in the East or in 
the West, whether the shepherd of the Tyrolese Highlands, or the 
Hollander of the plains, every man is, in a manner, the representa- 
tive of the home that gave him birth. In the people the country 
finds its reflection. The effect of the district upon the nature of its in- 
habitants in size and figure, in color and temperament, in speech and 
mental characteristics, is unmistakable. Hence the almost infinite 
diversity in the peculiarities of culture and attainment, as well as of 
tendency in different nations. Anthropology and Ethnography, the 
science of man and of race, are the running commentaries of Geog- 
raphy and Topography. The historian and the geographer work to- 
ward each other, — the historian going back from the acts of men to 
study the scenes which have conditioned their life, the geographer 
going forward from the study of the habitat of men to that of their 
deeds. The fundamental question of history is, in fact, AVhat rela- 
tion does the country bear to the national life? What relation to 
the civil structure, the state? 

In fact, the whole constitution of Man is thoroughly connected with 
the Earth on which he dwells ; the roots of his being run down into 
it in uncounted numbers. Man receives at birth from the earth not 
only a spiritual but a physical dowry, from which he cannot free him- 
self, and of whose worth he becomes conscious more and more. It 
is, therefore, of course one of the first of the legitimate studies to 
learn the limits of the realm which Man makes his home, and to 



INTRODUCTION. XIX 

understand all its secrets, all its forces, so as to turn them to his 
own uses. Thus alone can he compass the sublime thought of his 
own freedom, the independence of his own will in the kingdom of 
Nature, and learn the majesty of his own spirit; for the knowledge 
of that freedom, which is the most noble of all God's gifts to him, 
is the most direct key to the attainment of that place in the present, 
and that destiny in the future, which God has appointed for man. 
Without a preliminary training, amid the conditions of a limited 
life, can there be no step taken toward the enjoyment of the life 
without limitations which is to come. Without the capacity of break- 
ing the higher law, there is no glory in obeying it, no freedom to be 
valued, even in the world of thought. There can be no true specu- 
lation, no philosophy of the unlimited and eternal, without inquiry 
into and knowledge of the limited and conditioned. He who knows 
not the earthy, cannot know the heavenly; he who knows not the 
finite, cannot know the infinite. Statement and counter-statement 
are the substance to the world of thought. Pythagoras investigated 
matters of number and weight, before he dealt with the mysteries 
of metaphysical speculation. Plato thought on the human soul, 
and the practical details of legislation, before he gave himself to 
the deepest things of Philosophy. Aristotle was a naturalist and 
physicist, before he became a logician and metaphysician. Kant was 
a mathematician and astronomer, before he dealt with the problems 
of transcendental science. Schelling went from natural philosophy 
to the study of the soul of things. If there have been evil results 
from this, it has not been from antedating jaetapliysical studies by 
physical, but by passing too quickly from the solid foundation-stones 
to the more unstable heights of the transcendental. Without these 
solid foundation-stones, philosophy falls, crushed by its own weight; 
but with this preparation, we may advance to the loftiest and yet 
most secure speculations. 

What Geographt as a Science has tet to accomplish. 
Geography can just as little be contented with being a mere 
description of the Earth, and a catalogue of its divisions, as a de- 
tailed account of the objects in nature can take the place of a thor- 
ough and real natural history. The very word Geography, mean- 
ing a description of the Earth, has unfortunately been at fault, and 
has misled the world: to us it merely hints at the elements, the 



XX INTRODUCTION. 

factors of what is the true science of Geography. That science 
aims at nothing less than to embrace the most complete and the 
most cosmical view of the Earth; to sum up and organize into a 
beautiful unity all that we know of the globe. The whole body of 
facts revealed by past and present discovery must be marshaled 
into harmony, before we gain the high pinnacle of Geographical 
Science. The Earth, in all its parts, must be known in all its rela- 
tions, before we can speak of it as the scholars of our day ought 
to speak of the world they inhabit. 

Moreover, the Earth is to be considered in two main relations — a 
relation, and an absolute relation; that is, we are to regard it in 
its connection with the greater whole, of which it forms a part, 
the Universe, and as a body standing alone, existing, as it were, for 
itself. It is the latter view which falls within the strict province 
of Geography. The very prominence of the old Greek word J« indi- 
cates the pre-eminence which, in this science, our own planet, 
rather than others, receives. Ge-ography confines our attention to 
the Earth, and concentrates it upon the globe, regarded per se, 
rather than in its relations to the Universe. Taken, therefore, 
strictly, as already hinted at in the foregoing remark, Geography 
is the department of science that deals with the globe in all its 
features, phenomena, and relations, as an independent unit, and 
shows the connection of this unified whole with man and with man's 
Creator. Should we go beyond this, and discuss the relations of 
the Earth to the Universe, (as is often done in our geographical 
treatises, in a singularly imperfect and unfruitful manner,) we 
should outrun the strict bounds of a single science, and should be 
encroaching on the domain of the sister science of astronomy. This 
we have no right to do. Yet, from time to time, we must borrow 
the results of other departments of learning to confirm our own. 
The field which we have to till has been immensely reduced in its 
proportions by the publication of "Kosmos," which great work has 
almost exhausted the subject of the earth in its external relations- 
The limiting of our own department may, perhaps, give more op- 
portunity for thorough investigation within itself. 

The Earth, if discussed exhaustorily, must be spoken of in its 
relations to Time as well as to Space. The word by which we 
characterize it, in this regard, is History. The duration of the 
Earth outruns all measurement. By thinking of its beginning, is 



INTRODUCTION. XXI 

the only way we have of gaining a conception of Time. We cannot 
conceive of the universe as antedating the creation of our earth. 
By this indefinite, not to say infinite, duration of time, the Earth is 
discriminated from all that it contains; it is older than any of its 
parts; it antedates all its kingdoms. The nature of the whole is, 
therefore, radically different from that of any of its divisions. The 
Earth has had a development of its own; hence the too common 
error of treating it as passive and inorganic. The history of the 
Earth displays, in all the monuments of the past, that it has been 
subjected in every feature, in every division of itself, to ceaseless Ik 
transformation, in order to show that, as a whole, it is capable of 
that organic development on which I lay so much stress. The 
natural powers which the earth includes are constantly obedient to 
the mechanical laws of chemistry and physics. The animate crea- 
tion, plants, animals, man, come and go, in accordance with the laws 
of their being, and as subordinate dependents on the great forces 
which the earth holds locked up within her bosom. The earth, the 
mother of them all, has her own special advance, her own develop- 
ment, to use that overburdened German word. She has relations to 
herself alone; not simply to organized forms, plants, and animals; 
just as little to organic things; not simply to her own countries, 
her rocks, and her crystals. These are but isolated parts; or, if 
not isolated, yet bound together by a common tie. There is another 
tie above this; it is that which binds the earth to itself alone; that 
subordinates its parts to such an extent that they almost disap- 
pear. There is, above all this thought of parts, of features, of 
phenomena, the conception of the Earth as a whole, existing in 
itself, and for itself, an organic thing, advancing by growth, and 
becoming more and more perfect and beautiful. Without trying to 
impose on you anything vague and transcendental, I wish to lead 
you to view the globe as almost a living thing, — not a crystal, as- 
suming new grace by virtue of an external law, — but a world, 
taking on grandeur and worth, by virtue of an inward necessity. 
The individuality of the earth must be the watchword of re-created % 
Geography. To think of the Earth, as a seed sown from the hand 
of God himself on the great fields of space, and filled with a ger- 
minant power of life, which will transform it more and more, and 
make it more and more worthy of its noblest inhabitant, is the first, 
as it is the last, idea which we must take and keep in these inquiries. 



XXll INTRODUCTION. 

Formerly, Geography was regarded as a mere auxiliary of His- 
tory, Politics, Military Science, Natural History, the Industrial 
Arts, and Commerce. And in truth it does reach out and teach 
all these departments of knowledge and action; but only in the 
most recent times has it assumed the place of an independent branch 
of study. Only through the widening of the whole circle of sciences 
has room been made for this. 

Geography used, for the sake of commerce, to be divided into three 
divisions: mathematical, physical, and political. This was at the 
time when it was thought that the whole frame-work of the sciences 
was a disjointed and sundered thing; before that minor principle of 
unity which binds them all together was recognized as one of the 
noblest conceptions that the mind can cherish. In the first two of 
these arbitrary divisions into which Geography was severed, the re- 
lations of astronomy, mathematics, and physics were studied, and 
their applications to the confused phenomena of the globe investi- 
gated. Yet the most important thing of all escaped notice; stu- 
dents overlooked their chief task, the tracing of causation and 
interdependence in the phenomena, and the relation of every one 
to the country which supplies its conditions of being. It was not 
suspected that each phenomenon was one link of a great chain of 
phenomena, the whole revealing a comprehensive law. Men dis- 
cussed porphyritic formations, basaltic columns, hot springs, and a 
thousand features which dot the earth, and a thousand kinds of 
rock which rift the surface of the globe, and treated them singly 
as if each was a spore and the whole combination only a sporadic, 
group. They did not discover that in the one feature was to be 
found the reason of the existence of its neighbor; that all the 
layers of stone owe their singularities of structure to one another 
rather than to themselves; that each one stands in the closest con- 
nection with the upheaval of the loftiest mountains, with the forma- 
tion of great volcanic islands, and, in truth, with the building up of 
entire continents. And, in like manner, plants were discussed as 
if they were obedient to no law of grouping, as if they were scat- 
tered broadcast over the earth, having no relation to zones of vege- 
tation, to isothermal and isochimenal lines ; as if, in fact, there was 
no suspicion of any principle underlying the very existence of the 
whole vegetable kingdom. And so, too, with such phenomena as 
the Aurora Borealis ; they were treated as isolated features, rather 



INTRODUCTION. XXIU 

than in their relations to the globe; the connection was not seen 
between the maritime discoveries of voyagers and the great system 
of oceanic currents, on which voyagers are so dependent; in fact, 
the whole influence of the world of matter on the world of mind 
was unexplored. 

And in order to study what was called Political Geography, a vast 
mass of materials was converted into a stifi", ritualistic frame-work, 
in the effort to impose some system and imaginal completeness on 
it, and not in order to grasp facts and truths in their mutual rela- 
tions and inward life; they were merely arranged for convenient 
reference and for available use in the departments of military sci- 
ence, politics, statistics, and history; a method which is plainly our 
inheritance from the Middle Ages, and which bears the marks of 
those days. Thus from this arbitrary arrangement, made without 
reference to any indwelling necessity, sprang the three groups with 
which we are familiar: Chronography and Topography forming 
the first, Ethnography and Anthropology the second, and Statistics 
and History the third, or Political Geography. 

From these three groups our ordinary text-books compile their 
usual aggregate of facts, and each becomes after its own pattern a 
motley in miniature. They contain variable quantities of this triple 
mass of materials, and follow no law but the demands of the time 
when they see the light; they favor, like our light literature, the 
whim of the hour, and are political, military, or commercial, as the 
public may demand. A systematic exposition of geography is very 
seldom to be found in them. A harmony of parts, a true harmony, 
is very rarely attained in their pages. They are at the foundation 
only arbitrary and unmethodical collections of all facts which are 
ascertained to exist throughout the earth. They are arranged ac- 
cording to countries, or great natural divisions; but the relation 
of one great natural division to another, the mutual and immense 
influence of one country on another, is never mentioned. The de- 
scription of Europe follows in them to-day the same order in which 
Strabo set the pattern. The facts are arranged as the pieces of a 
counterpane, as if every one existed in itself and for itself, and 
had no connections with others. The setting out of these facts fol- 
lows the rubrical method of grouping, according to boundary, soil, 
mountains, rivers, products, and cities. The beginning is usually 
made with boundaries which are generally most unstable and uncer- 



XXIV INTRODUCTION. 

tain, instead of being made with some rudimental fact around which 
all others arrange themselves as a center. 

If we compare these geographical treatises with those made in 
the interest of any other great department, we shall speedily dis- 
cover that they indicate knowledge rather than science; they form 
a mere aggregation and index of rich materials, a lexicon rather 
than a true text-book. And therefore ensues, despite the undenied 
interest of the subject and its high claims, the mechanical and un- 
fruitful method only too common — the crowding of the memory 
without judgment, without thought; thence comes it that Geog- 
raphy has taken so low a place among our school studies, worthy 
only of the youngest of the pupils, and presenting little stimulus 
even to them. 

It will be my effort, in the course of these lectures, to exhibit the 
subject of relations rather than to detain you with descriptions; in 
one word, to generalize rather than to add new details. In the 
lack of a thoroughly excellent text-book of geography, I shall 
presuppose an acquaintance on your part with the materials, so to 
speak, of which the science is to be constructed. 

It has been a customary method to treat geography in connec- 
1^' tion with epochs of time; dealing with it as it was in the past and as 
it is in the present. We hear of Ancient Geography, the Geography 
of the Middle Ages, and Modern Geography. In this course of 
J lectures, it will be treated not as the property of one age or another, 
but rather as a growth of all time, from Herodotus down to our day. 
It is only in this way that we can ascertain what is permanent and 
what is ephemeral; only in this way can we subject geography to 
that comparative method which has given such an impetus to the 
advancement of the sister sciences of Natural History; only in this 
way can we see how the present is the birthright of the past. 
Archa3ology, ethnography, and civil science are all gainers by this 
method of treatment; in one word, the whole domain of cotempo- 
raneous study. The less positive knowledge we possess of the forma- 
tive processes of science, the more crude our hypotheses, the more 
flagrant our errors. This is constantly verified under our eyes ; 
the errors of the past are the wisdom of the present, and the gradual 
upheavals of our knowledge become indices, not less of outgrown 
untruths than of truths yet to be revealed. 



INTRODUCTION. XXV 



SoDROES OF Geographical Science. 

The sources of geography, as of history, are twofold — estab- 
lished memorials and continued investigations. The study of it has 
this great advantage at the outset, that the surface of the earth is 
a standing monument of the past. We are obliged to search where 
all lies open ; where investigation must be crowned with success. 
No manuscripts in this great library have perished; they all exist as 
legible, as accessible as ever. Moreover, personal investigation 
must be made by every student in order to understand the results 
of the investigations of others. Wherever our home is, there lie all 
the materials which we need for the study of the entire globe. 
Humboldt hints at this when he says in his Kosmos: "Every little 
nook and shaded corner is but a reflection of the whole of Nature." 
The roaring mountain brook is the type of the thundering cataract; 
the geological formations of a single little island, suggest the broken 
coast lines of a continent; the study of the boulders which are so 
thickly scattered in token of a great primeval deluge from the north, 
reveals the structure of whole mountain chains. The digging of 
every well may contribute to our knowledge of the earth's crust; 
the excavations made in the building of railroads may, without the 
loss of time, labor, and expense, be a ceaseless source of instruc- 
tion. In the structure of a spear of grass, of a rush, of a single 
monocotyledon, may be studied in miniature the palm-tree, prince 
of the tropics; in the mosses and lichens on our walls, the 
stunted growths of mountain tops may be investigated. A small 
range of hills may be taken as the type of the loftiest Cordillera. 
The eye may be easily trained to see all the greater in the less.* 
The study of our own district is the true key to the understanding of 
the forms and the phenomena of foreign lands. Whoever has wan 
dered through the valleys and woods, and over the hills and mount- 
ains of his own State, will be the one capable of following a He- 
rodotus in his wanderings over the globe. He, and he alone, will 
be able, with true appreciation, to accompany travelers through all 
foreign lands. The very first step in a knowledge of geography is 
to know thoroughly the district where we live. 

Unfortunately the text-books which we now possess do not dis- 
cuss, with any approach to exhaustivencss, the districts where their 

'c 4 



XXVI INTRODUCTION 

readers live; and hence they cannot give any true inductive gen- 
eralization of the large and the remote. In ancient times, the 
study of geography began with the world of nature, not with the 
world of books. Herodotus, being 444 years B. C, became, by 
virtue of his investigations on his wanderings, t)ie first critical 
geographer of the Greeks. Polybius traveled through the Alps 
and Pyrenees, Gaul and Spain, to be able to write the history of 
Hannibal's campaigns. He explored the Black Sea and Egypt, in 
quest of facts. He is the father of all military geography; the 
greatest strategists have busied themselves with writing comment- 
aries on Polybius. Strabo, the most industrious geographer of hia 
age, did not write till he had traveled from the Caucasus to the 
Rhone, and from the Alps to Ethiopia. 

Philip Cluver, of Dantzig, who died in 1623, the true founder of 
" classical geography, collected, by personal investigations, the ma- 
terials of his great work on Germany, Italy, and ancient Sicily, all 
of which countries he traversed thoroughly, the classic authors in 
his hand. 

Alexander von Humboldt has become, by his thorough studies 
\ of nature in Europe, Asia, and America, the founder of Compara- 
tive Geography. He was thoroughly acquainted with every geo- 
graphical form in the neighborhood of his home, before he traveled 
into foreign lands. These examples show that personal investiga- 
tion is one of the most reliable of all sources of geographical 
knowledge. 

The second class of these sources is the accounts given in the pub- 
lished memoirs of travelers. In more primitive days than these, 
when very little was known regarding the earth, personal examina- 
tion was easily completed, with a good degree of fullness, by almost 
any tourist. "With the advance of knowledge, the narratives of 
travelers have increased, and the sum total of facts observed has 
become unwieldy; and, where facts have been wanting, the imagin- 
ation has amply supplied their place. Of course, a single life soon 
became too short for the personal examination of every quarter of 
the globe; the narratives of those who had thoroughly explored 
any one were accepted as authoritative, and these accounts soon 
became the most generally available of all the sources of geo- 
graphical knowledge. Yet, with this limitation, that now their 



INTRODUCTION. XXVll 

abundance and their exactness tend to repress and almost io de- 
stroy any personal inquiry whatever. Nothing can take the place 
of some exploration and investigation on the part of the student 
of geography. 

To the accounts of scientific travelers, may be added those maps 
and globes which indicate the contour and the vertical elevations 
and depressions of the earth or its divisions. The demand for per- 
fect accuracy in these is now very great. The map must be a por- 
trait, not a caricature. In its way, the map has a certain dictatorial 
authority ; it is so decisive in its very character, that errors in it are 
far more dangerous than in the letter-press of books. The English 
excel in the beauty of their maps: there are none in the world en- 
graved with the rare excellence of theirs; but their care to secure 
accuracy is not commensurate. The French and the Germans vie 
for the honor of perfectly transcribing nature. 

The Sciences illusteative of Geography. 

The sciences which are called in to illustrate the thorough study 
of geography have largely increased in number within the past few 
years. They are, for the most part, the same which illustrate his- 
tory; to which may be added mathematics and natural history. It 
is a very great mistake to suppose that all that bears upon geogra- 
phy cftn be crowded within the covers of a single book. It is com- 
monly supposed that geography is a matter of memory. Even in its 
elementary forms, it is capable of a constructive treatment. Many 
a teacher, who has not paid special attention to this department, 
dreams that he can qualify himself by running through a single 
text-book. No philologist would dream that, with a grammar and 
dictionary, he could grasp any constructive theory of language. 
There must first be the study, comparatively, of the great classes. 
And in geography, the personal study of the earth, with critical 
closeness, and in the comparative method, is the true way. 

Another very common error is, that geography must subsidize 
what is most striking in other sciences, and thereby gain its charms 
and attain its uses. Thus geography becomes everything — history, 
statistics, statecraft, physics, a catalogue of all the possessions of 
natural history, in all its kingdoms. It takes on all colors, and 
meanwhile loses its own. It merges all its individuality in other 



XXVlll INTRODUCTION. 

provinces. In no way can it escape tliis disintegrating force, unless 
by holding fast to some central principle of being; and that is the 
relation of all the phenomena and forms of nature to the human 
race. It cannot exist, if it is to be merely an aggregate of all 
science, a mosaic of all colors. It is to use the whole circle of 
sciences to illustrate its own individuality, not to exhibit their 
peculiarities It must make them all give a portion, not the whole, 
and yet must keep itself single and clear. 

For the comprehension of mathematical geography, a knowledge 
of the elements of mathematics and astronomy is indispensable. 
For determining localities, and for using many needed instruments, 
there must be some skill in practical astronomy; for measuring dis- 
tances, for projecting maps and charts, and locating geographical 
districts upon them, there must be some familiarity with trigonome- 
try and the higher mathemntics. No one can thoroughly study 
geography in foreign lands, and leave all astronomical instruments 
behind. 

Political geography demands an acquaintance with history, and 
the same helps which the study of history requires. The civil 
status of no country can be determined without this. Biisching's 
"Europe" was a master-piece of its time. But it was impossible 
for even that book to compress within its covers the whole history 
of that continent in its relation to the geography of Europe. 

The study of Man is, of course, in most intimate alliance with 
geography. It is only since the opening of this century that eth- 
nography has become a prominent and clearly defined province of 
science, and enabled to become a great tributary of geography; in 
fact, the greatest tributary. Other departments are also drawn 
upon ; there can be no close study of the soil, the structure of mount- 
ains and plains, without mineralogy and geology. Meteorology, 
too, the science which discusses the climatic conditions of countries 
and the eiFects of climate upon the organization of plants, animals, 
and man, is of no mean value in illustrating geography. Nor can 
one be a great geographer who does not understand the flora of the 
world. Not that he needs to be familiar with the myriads of plants, 
but the laws of growth and the characteristics of localization must 
be known. The geographer does not need to repeat in detail where 
the cereals and the palm-tree thrive. The general conditions which 



INTRODUCTION. XXIX 

control the growth of plants are all that he has to concern himself 
with. The main auxiliary for this is furnished in the botanical 
garden, where the eye sees the products of all localities, arranged, 
according to their grouping, in the countries where they are indig- 
enous. Botany and zoology and mineralogy are among the sciences 
most valuable in throwing light upon geography; they display best 
what wealth each country holds in store for the uses of man; for 
they are closely connected with the development of industry, the 
af ts, and trade. 

This brings us to the last province, commerce, the science of in- 
terchange. The study of minerals, of the distribution of plants 
and animals, is of little advantage, aside from commerce and its 
uses to man. It is the interchange of the products of one region 
for those of another which has had, on the whole, the greatest in- 
fluence on the human race. Think, for an instant, of the transfer 
of the potato from America to Europe, of maize to Asia; of the far 
more ancient introduction of wheat and rice from Asia into Europe; 
and not these alone, but almost all the fruits. Think of the carrying 
from Asia to America, and, in fact, to all tropical lands, such products 
as sugar, coffee, and cotton. Think, too, of the results of the search 
for gold, ivory, and slaves in the interior of Africa, and of gold in 
California and Australia, opening such immense districts to settle- 
ments. The search after plalina has disclosed the most guarded 
recesses of the Cordilleras and the Ural chain ; while the need of 
copper first gave us our complete knowledge of the great system 
of American lakes. Without the expeditions to secure the whale, 
the walrus, and the seal, as well as the fur-bearing animals, the 
polar world would be still untraversed. The discovery of coal on a 
hundred shores otherwise unknown, led to the settlement of man in 
colonies from India and China southward to the Antarctic Conti- 
nent, and northward to Nova Zembla, Spitzbergen, and Greenland. 

And not the continents only, seas and oceans have been thoroughly 
studied, in order to secure a safe pathway for man to the regions 
which contain his spoils. In the furtherance of this, the highest 
praise must be awarded to the British government. Through its 
enterprise and liberality, almost every island group has been ex- 
amined, a thorough study of marine currents undertaken, careful 
soundings made in all waters, and a most extensive chartography 

c* 



XXX INTRODUCTION. 

accomplished. The charts published by the English admiralty al- 
ready are counted by thousands. 

Yet the French have not been backward in like investigations. 
Understanding the value of commerce, their D^pot de la Marine has 
not been inactive. Scandinavia has also done her part. The 
United States has accomplished one of the most thorough coast 
surveys ever undertaken by any nation ; its difficulties are only to 
be measured by its extent. In fact, the whole civilized world has 
sent its messengers to the ends of the earth, and have united in 
this grand crusade of our age, the enriching of all men by a liberal 
system of interchange of the commodities of all climes. 



COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 



PART I. 

THE SURFACE OP THE EARTH CONSIDERED IN ITS MOST 
GENERAL RELATIONS. 



The Spheroidal Form of the Earth. 

The measurements of, and investigations into the figure 
of the earth, have led, as already stated in the introduc- 
tion, to no absolutely certain conclusion; yet they have 
made it certain that the earth is, in a general sense, a 
spheroid. There are many discrepancies, as were then 
stated, from the perfectly spheroidal shape ; still it is in this 
sense a spheroid, that the polar diameter is not of the same 
length with the equatorial diameter. 

The globular form of the earth, using that word in a 
loose sense, has been established with certainty since 
Newton's time. The experience of circumnavigators, the 
uniform shield-shape of the shadow of the earth during 
eclipses of the moon, are witnesses to this. The gradual 
emerging and disappearance of objects, such as ships on 
the sea, in coming and going, caravans on the desei't, of 
mountains as they are approached, establish the fact. 
These proofs are so well known that we but touch on them 
and pass to what is not so obvious. 

(31) 



32 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY 

As soon as the fact was established that the earth was 
a subordinate member of a system, it was brought into 
analogy with other planets, and their uniformly spherical 
shape was considered another valid reason for attributing 
the same to our globe. The discovery of the rotation of 
the earth on its axis was still another argument in the same 
direction. Mathematical measurements and observations 
of the pendulum, taken at different stations, have confirmed 
the same result. 

To measure a spherical body, it is only necessary to take 
the length of a degree in one of its great circles, and to 
multiply its length by 360, the number of degrees. The 
method of measuring a degree on the earth's surface is by 
taking two stars, just one degree apart, dropping, by as- 
tronomical and mathematical means, vertical lines upon 
the earth from them and measuring the distances apart of 
the points where those lines impinge upon the globe. This 
can be done with perfect accuracy. Such investigations 
show that the degrees are not all of equal length, as they 
would be were the earth a perfect sphere. Nearer the 
poles they are longer, nearer the equator they are shorter. 
The curvature of the earth is therefore gi-eater as you ap- 
proach the equatorial line, and less as you recede from it. 
In general terms, then, the earth is an oblate spheroid, as 
it would be a prolate spheroid were the lengths of its 
diameters reversed. By the most accurate measurements, 
those of the astronomer Bessel, if the equatorial diameter 
were divided into 289 equal parts, the polar diameter would 
measure 288 of them, being ^^-g shorter. 

To this must be added what was said in the introduc- 
tion, that the surprising accuracy of modern instruments 
and modern investigations, applied to meridian circles and 
parallels of latitude, have determined the fact that the 



THE SPHEROIDAL FORM OP THE EARTH. 66 

spheroid is not a perfect one, (just as so often in nature 
the ideal is rather striven after than attained,) but an irreg- 
ular polyhedron of an indeterminate number of sides. 
Still for all practical purposes, these minute inquiries have 
no value, and it is enough to treat of the earth as a per- 
fect globe, so far, at least, as map-drawing is concerned. 
The deviation from a perfectly spherical shape is so incon- 
siderable that in an artificial globe of eighteen inches 
diameter it would hardly amount to the thickness of a 
sheet of paper; still, small as this is represented on a 
miniature scale, it has, doubtless, great importance on the 
great scale of a world like this, both in affecting somewhat 
the perturbation of other 'heaveijly bod.ies which depend- 
on the earth, as well as the peTturbatifenk'-M-ihe earth's 
own motion. Besides this, which is legally not a small 
point in consideration of the possible results which the 
minutest perturbation of one little planet may have on the 
universe, there is one other, more appreciable in its re- 
sults, the probable influence of this spheroidal, or rather 
polyhedrons form, in producing the unequal division of land 
and water upon the surface of the earth. The apparent 
want of any principle or reason for this inequality has 
long perplexed geographers, and there seems to be no 
more satisfactory solution than the one to which I have 
just alluded. In the course of future investigations into 
the yet undetermined exact mathematical form of the 
earth, the law which controls the division into land and 
water will be more thoroughly understood. Unquestion- 
ably the position of the great oceans depends upon their 
distance from the center of the globe, and although the 
present proportion of land and water seems fortuitous, 
undoubtedly it has a uniformly acting, and a thoroughly 
appreciable law 

5 



34 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

The Threefold Covering of the Earth. 

What may in the largest and most general sense be 
called the superficies of the earth, is threefold in charac- 
ter, and yet one in function; consisting of a highly elastic 
body, the atmosphere, water, and the solid ground. These 
three forms are variously proportioned ; the more elastic 
is universal, the fluid form is more restricted, and the solid 
one prevails still less. The more dense the body, the nearer 
it is found to the center of the earth. The lightest of all 
floats over the entire periphery of the globe like a grace 
ful mantle of cloud. Man, and in fact all organisms, 
live by contact with all three of these forms. The inves- 
tigation of the elements, and phenomena of the air, re- 
garded in themselves, is the province of meteorology. 
The mercury-column is the true language of the atmos- 
phere, and tells us in distinct tones of all the changes 
there. Mineralogy and geology make us acquainted with 
all the qualities and all the elements of the soil, not in their 
relation to man, but regarded in themselves. Geography 
deals with the conflict of all these bodies, their relations to 
each other, their mutual action and reaction. Meteorology 
gives occasion for the study of qlimate, and for the obser- 
vation of the phenomena of the lower strata of the atmos- 
phere, — the fall of rain and snow, for example. Geology 
and mineralogy give rise to the study of plains and mount- 
ain formations, as well as of volcanic phenomena, affect- 
ing the surface of the earth as they do in earthquakes, 
upheavals of whole districts, and the opening of hot springs. 
Thus, geography has it own province clearly defined, and 
uses all this and studies it in relation to the organic world, 
and to man foremost of all. 

The most highly elastic covering of the earth is un- 



THE THREEFOLD COVERING OF THE EARTH. 35 

broken, the other two are sundered, and each only occu- 
pies a part of the surface. Formerly, in most ancient 
times, the water seems to have covered the entire earth. 
The study of this is, however, within the domain of geol- 
ogy. We have to do only with the historic period which 
followed. We have to look at the earth in its present rela- 
tions, and as the home of man. Now, the portions cov- 
ered with water are, by far, the largest part of the sur- 
face ; a little less than three -fourths are water, a little more 
than one-fourth land. The whole water-mass is composed 
largely of the oceans, which, in one sense, constitute a 
continent of their own : in looking at them as we do now, 
we are not to regard them as ceasing at the outlines of the 
great land-masses, but as penetrating these as far as to the 
springs which feed the rivers; for the world of waters, 
embracing springs, brooks, rivers, lakes, seas, and oceans, 
is one, and but one. 

The water is, in some respects, a form between the other 
two; its peculiarities, weight, density, freedom of move- 
ment, and changeableness of form, are a mean between 
the opposing extremes of air and the ground. Water can 
pass to a more fluid or a more solid state ; it can become 
vapor or ice. The measurement of the depth of the world 
of waters has lately been so clearly connected with the 
needs of civilization, that geographers have made many 
exceedingly accurate investigations. Formerly, this was 
much neglected; up to Captain Cook's time 1500 feet was 
the greatest depth ascertained ; in the course of the Arctic 
discoveries "7000 feet limited the plummet's descent; Cap- 
tain Ross sounded, near St. Helena, to a depth of 30,000 
feet; and Captain Denhorn, in the South Atlantic, reached 
a point. 4C,000 feet from the surface — about twice the 
height of the loftiest mountains. And not single points 



36 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

alone, but entire ocean districts have been traversed ; the 
temperature of these great depths has been studied, the 
currents, the density, in fact all the features which must 
be known preliminarily to the laying of great lines of sub- 
marine telegraphs, such, for example, as that proposed 
between North America and Europe. 

The atmosphere, too, is by no means thoroughly known 
to us. It rises to a height between 85 and 95 miles from 
the earth, of which man has explored in balloons only 
about five miles, or the height of the loftiest mountains. 
At loftier heights than we can live, the bright light of mid- 
day even fades into a dim kind of twilight, and meteoric 
masses of iron are seen in full glow, there being oxygen 
enough even there to support their combustion, and very 
little resistance to overcome from the density of the at- 
mosphere. Astronomers, Benzenberg in particular, have 
calculated the distance of the meteors to range from 23 
to 100 miles from the earth, and have studied them* in 
respect to the time when they were visible, their locality, 
and their direction. The limits of the atmosphere must 
be at that point where the expansive power of air and the 
attractive influence of the globe neutralize each other. 
The form of the atmospheric body is therefore, like the 
earth, spheroidal, but far more obiate than the earth, in 
consequence of its much greater fluidity. At the poles, 
the distance is therefore much less from the surface of the 
earth to the confines of the atmosphere than at the equa- 



* Meteors, which are nightly visible, are different from the peri- 
odic phenomena, seen in August and November, in different locali- 
ties over the earth, and called falling stars. These exist outside 
of our atmosphere, and belong not to the earth, but rather to the 
great solar system. 



THE THREEFOLD COVERING Or THE EARTH. 37 

tor. The effect of this upon the refraction of light must 
be very great. 

The investigation of the interior of the earth is more 
difficult to us than that of the atmosphere even. We can- 
not say that we know thoroughly more than we can learn 
by penetrating ^-qij-q part of the distance to the center of 
the globe. Deeper than that our lowest shafts have not 
sunk. The coal mines of England penetrate perhaps the 
farthest below the sea level ; for the deep mines in Ger- 
many, in the Hartz district, for instance, have their en- 
trance hundreds of feet above it. One coal mine near 
Durham, England, descends to a depth of about 1584 feet, 
and reaches a point Avhere the thermometer is 79° Fah- 
renheit. The deep coal mines of England have, however, 
one rival, in a shaft at Liege, which is sunk 1800 feet. 

The modern Artesian well has gone to still greater 
depths, in the effort to procure brine for the manufacture 
of salt, or fresh water for the use of cities. At Rehme, 
in Porta Westphalica, a point 2160 feet from the surface 
has been reached, and water brought up at a temperature 
of 90° Fahrenheit, containing four per cent, of salt. By 
an ingenious application of mechanics to the process of 
well boring, doubtless a depth of 5000 feet could be at- 
tained. At Mondorf, in Luxemburg, a bore has been 
made through sandstone and the mineral formations lying 
beneath it, for a distance of 2700 feet, and water reached 
at 82° Fahrenheit. 

The great upheavals caused by earthquakes and volca- 
noes disclose still vaster depths. In the eruptions of the 
latter, immense masses of the inner contents of the earth 
are thrown out, sometimes enough to form a not insignifi- 
cant mountain, and to desolate large regions with their 
debris. As a general thing, the original mineral forms are 
D 



38 COMPARATIVE GEOGllAPHY. 

lost and indistinguishable in the molten mass. Yet not 
seldom perfect specimens are hurled out, imbedded in 
lava and cinders; not always minute fragments, some- 
times huge blocks, testifying not with any degree of com- 
pleteness, yet clearly, to a certain extent, of the composi- 
tion of the region bordering on the great inner sea of 
molten matter. Yet most of our knowledge upon this 
subject is hypothetical, and what we know only indicates 
painfully the great extent of that of which we are entirely 
ignorant. 

The uniform increase of temperature, as we descend into 
the earth, at the rate of about 24° Fahrenheit for every 100 
feet, the heat of some mineral springs, leads to the conclu- 
sion that, could we advance to a place about twenty-three 
miles from the surface, we should attain the limits where 
all becomes a molten mass. The cold surface, on which 
we walk in such security, seems, by all analogies, to en- 
velop a liquid caldron which has been seething from the 
morning of the world. This internal mass is, of course, the 
source of all volcanic eruptions, and of all the phenomena 
to which I have alluded above. A distinguished geologist 
has well said that " light and heat are the two extremes 
of being : the farther man goes away from the earth's sur- 
face, he encounters light ; the farther he recedes inwardly 
from its surface, he encounters heat." It is true we are not 
absolutely certain that the rate of increase is uniform, at the 
rate of one degree Fahrenheit for every 45 feet; but if it 
is, we should reach the boiling point of water at less than 
10,000 feet from the surface, and the melting point of iron 
(22° Fahrenheit) a little over 120,000 feet. The relation 
of this thickness to the entire diameter of the earth is 
about as 1 to 344, about the ratio of the thickness of an 
esrg-shell to the egg. 



SUPERFICIAL DIMENSIONS OF LAND AND WATER. 39 

The Superficial Dimensions of the Land and Water on 
the Globe. 

The equatorial diameter of the earth, 1925-6 miles, mul- 
tiplied into the circumference, 24898-8, equals 197,339,590, 
the number of square miles on the earth's surface, reck- 
oning as if of a true sphere. The deduction to be made, 
in consequence of its spheroidal shape, has not yet been 
estimated with any approach to nicety. The sum indi- 
cated above is exact enough to satisfy geographical pur- 
poses ; enough to lead to the laws of relative rather than 
to a minute individualization. The proportion even of 
land to water has not been determined, except with ap- 
proximate accuracy. It has been commonly stated that 
two-thirds are water and one-third land; others have 
computed three-fifths to be water and two-fifths land. 
The most accurate measurements, those instituted by 
Humboldt, have left it in this statement, that if the whole 
be taken as one, the sea occupies •'734, the land -265, or, 
reduced and simplified in almost unchanged form, a little 
more than three-quarters water, a little less than one- 
quarter land. Of course it is impossible, as yet, to at- 
tain to accuracy in these estimates, as our knowledge is 
imperfect regarding the polar regions ; there are about 
17,000,000 square miles unexplored. 

The ascertaining of superficial areas with exactness is 
one of the most costly operations undertaken in the in- 
terest of science. The first mathematical survey of France, 
one hundred and fifty years ago, undertaken by Cassini, 
cost four millions ; the second sixteen millions ; a third, still 
more costly, has been made within the present century. 
Still, it must be said that few countries have expended 
money in this direction with as much prodigality as 



40 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

France. In Turkey, for instance, so little accuracy has 
been attained, that the survey of that country, under- 
taken by Beauchamp early in this century, resulted in es- 
tablishing the Sultan in possession of 1*7,000 square miles 
which he had supposed were covered by the Black Sea. 
The recent surveys of Prussia have rectified similar mis- 
takes, and, in the constantly increasing accuracy, have 
given hundreds of square miles to the Crown. Many 
countries, and in truth the most, have never been sub- 
jected to a strict mensuration. The jagged coast lines 
of islands and continents have been so great a barrier, that 
we have to speak with great uncertainty of the superficial 
contents which they inclose. The statements of these 
make no pretense, therefore, to accuracy. We must be 
content, at present, with the rudest approximation. This 
accounts for the discrepancy in our geographical com- 
pendia ; no two of them agree, unless one servilely copies 
the other. The statistics relating to the superficial con- 
tents of continents, and of separate countries, must be 
taken with a great deal of allowance. The evil cannot 
be remedied at present; it will be, doubtless, at some 
future day. The discrepancies which it occasions will be 
seen, from the fact that the area of Europe has been com- 
puted to be between 3,254,800 and 3,870,500 square miles ; 
that of Asia between 16,180,000 and 16,881,600: that 
of Africa between 11,257,200 and 11,513,600; that of 
America between 12,140,400 and 15,963,600; that of 
AustraUa between 2,756,000 and 3,201,200 square miles. 
According to this, Asia is five times as large as Europe, 
and almost six times as large as the continent of Australia. 
Africa is three times as large as Europe. America is four 
times as large as Europe, and is as large as Africa and 
Australia combined. Europe would make about one-third 



C(iNTRAST OF LAND AND WATER HEMISPHERES. 41 

of Africa, one-quarter of America, one- fifth of Asia. Our 
present knowledge does not allow us to speak more defi- 
nitely nor exactly. 

Contrast of the land and Water Hemispheres. 

Whether we divide the globe into northern and southern 
or eastern and western hemispheres, their relative amounts 
of land and water will be different. The northern hemisphere 
contains (speaking approximatively as above) 38,541,600 
square miles of land, and 59,619,*700 of water; the 
southern, 12,847,200 of land, and 85,526,100 of water. 
The eastern hemisphere contains 36,760,800 square miles 
of land, and 61,401,000 of water; the western, 14,628,000 
of land, and 83,533,300 of water. 

Besides the division quantitatively, the division in re- 
spect to symmetry of shape is entirely irregulai'. Sym- 
metry, as we usually use the word, consists in the arrange- 
ment of parts at equal distances, or two sides at least, from 
some central point or line. Mineral crystals are regarded 
in relation to the point where crystallization began ; plants 
are viewed in relation to the stem-axis; animals in rela- 
tion to the symmetry of the entire structure. A similar 
law of symmetry is entirely wanting to the globe ; its 
arrangement is altogether unlike this; it is not nearly so 
perceptible at first glance, yet it is far more profound in 
design and comprehensive in its relations. 

The land is broken up into masses, varying in size, and 
called, arbitrarily, continents and islands. Strictly speak- 
ing, there are but two continents, the old world forming 
one, the new world the other. Australia may be called 
the smallest continent or the largest island ; it is the con- 
necting link between the forms, and shows at a glance the 
arbitrary distinction. We might easily go further and call 
D* 6 



42 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

New Guinea, Borneo, Sumatra, Great Britain, and Java, 
continents, and, on the other hand, we might designate the 
old and the new world as islands. There is nothing abso- 
lute here but the usage of speech. 

The continents and islands lie mainly in the northern 
hemisphere, (38,341,600 square miles,) scarcely a third 
part of their superficies (12,84t,200 square miles) being in 
the southern. 

The continents are so situated also that the eastern con- 
tains by far the largest body of land, (36,160,800 square 
miles,) the western being only about one-third as large, 
(13,628,000 square miles.) America, the western, it will 
be seen, has no first-class island lying near it; it stands 
isolated. 

It is seen by this that the greatest mass of land lies in 
the northern hemisphere, dividing the earth in one way, 
and in the eastern dividing it in another; the smallest 
mass in the southern and the western. In the northeast 
the watery realm is the most contracted, in the southwest 
the least. We are thus enabled to speak of the land side 
of the globe, the land hemisphere, and a water side, the 
water hemisphere. 

The central point of the water hemisphere is at the island 
of New Zealand. Toward this the points of all the con- 
tinents are directed. The center of the land hemisphere is 
in the northwest of Europe, at a point near southeast of 
England, the northeast of France, and the coast of Hol- 
land. The dwellers around the North Sea are the anti- 
podes of the New Zealanders. Great Britain is the coun- 
try which, as a whole, is the middle point of the conti- 
nental world. In the oceanic world, the islands lie like 
scattered dots, insignificant in respect to area, in compari- 
son with the waste of waters which surrounds them, while. 



CONTRAST OF LAND AND WATER HEMISPHERES. 43 

on the other hand, the land hemisphere is so solidly com- 
pacted, that even the Arctic Ocean becomes merely a broad 
channel. 

Thus arises the first great contrast which we have to 
study : the first, and next to the great primary distinction 
between the North and South, the most important. The 
division into land and water, aside from commerce, must 
exercise the strongest influence on the distribution of 
heat and cold, affecting the temperature of all the zones. 
This influence has been fully noticed and brought before 
the world by Alexander von Humboldt. It is sufficient to 
refer to it now as a well-determined fact in physical 
geography. 

The heat equator is a little farther north than the mathe- 
matical equator, because the land hemisphere has a greater 
heat capacity (if we may use an awkward but apt word) 
than the water hemisphere. All other isothermal lines 
are modified in their greater or less coincidence with the 
parellels of latitude as they advance from the heat equator 
toward the maximum of the land hemisphere, or, in gen- 
eral terms, as they go northward. In the western hemi- 
sphere the isothermal lines follow much more exactly 
-the parallels of latitude than in the eastern, which is pre- 
eminently the land hemisphere. In America the proximity 
of immense masses of water causes a perceptible reduc- 
tion of the heat from that of the eastern where the land form 
prevails. And the heat diminishes more as we advance 
toward the South Pole, than toward the North, in con- 
sequence of the greater deficiency of land in the southern 
hemisphere ; while in Lapland, Greenland, and in Siberia, 
even within the polar circle itself, men find sustenance, 
and trees live, in the same latitude, at the South Pole, no 
vegetable life, worth mentioning, is found. The frigid 



44 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

zone and the temperate zone of the southern hemisphere 
are not coincident with those of the northern. The ice- 
bergs which are formed at the South Pole are carried 
much nearer to the equator than those found at the North 
Pole. 

An important phenomenon, first pointed out by A. von 
Humboldt and Dove, is closely connected with what has 
just been said. The Atlantic shores of the old world are 
warmer than those in the same latitude of the new world. 
Norway, England, and France are warmer than Labrador 
and Canada ; Spain, Portugal, and Morocco are warmer 
than Floi'ida ; Congo and Benguela are warmerthan Brazil, 
although the countries brought in contrast all lie on the 
same parallel. 

A similar analogy is drawn from the west shore of 
America : Northern California is warmer than Japan and 
Corea, which are in the same latitude. It is true, other 
factors are at work to produce this, such as winds, marine 
currents, elevations of land, etc., of which more will be 
said hereafter. 

Both of the two great land divisions of the earth, it 
will thus be seen, have their peculiarities. But there is a 
great equalizer of their diversities, found in a great coast- ' 
belt, of which I must briefly speak. It passes from the 
Cape of Good Hope northeasterly at an angle of 45°, 
passing through the Mozambique channel, thence skirting 
the entire southeastern and eastern coast of Asia, taking 
in China, Corea, Japan, and South Kamtckatka; thence it 
turns southward, following the whole western shore of 
America to Cape Horn. This belt is broken at only two 
points — a brief break at the north, at Behring's Straits, 
and a large one between Cape Horn and the Cape of Good 
Hope ; in other words, at the points nearest to the North 



CONTRAST OF LAND AND WATER HEMISPHERES. 45 

and the South Poles respectively. This coast belt has 8 
relation to the habitable world similar to that held by the 
temperate zone as a mediator between the torrid and the 
frigid. It partakes of the character of the sea and the 
land, and shows the advantages of both. It does not run 
parallel with the lines of latitude, but crosses them diago- 
nally, in the same direction with the ecliptic, though at a 
more acute angle. This belt moderates all extremes. 
Coincident with it are the paths of the sea and land winds, 
the course of the monsoons, the most fertile shores of the 
whole globe. It divides the surface of the globe into 
three great divisions, the two great bodies of water, and 
the great, and, comparatively speaking, unbroken (for the 
break at Behring's Straits is of little importance) land- 
mass. On the great coast line referred to above is the 
center of the great natural acclivities of the globe. It is 
the most varied, the most stimulating, and the most pro- 
ductive in all departments of the vegetable and animal 
kingdoms. The Atlantic coast belt, which also has great 
influence on the eastern districts of the new world and 
the western districts of the old, crosses the great coast 
belt at almost right angles at the place of its great sunder- 
ing between Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope. 

If the -contrast between the sea and the land has the 
effect indicated above on the general development of or- 
ganic life, it must of course have great effect also on the 
life and character of man. Man eminently depends upon 
the conditions amid which his lot is cast. The inhabit- 
ant of one of the Pacific islands dwelt in a world whose ut- 
most possibilities to him lay in the adjacent islands within 
view, and which his canoe could reach in a few hours' sail. 
The difference in culture between him and those whose 
range of observation has been greater, must be immense. 



46 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

The compacted land division of the globe, the solid cluster 
of continents, must be the source of stimulus and culture, 
of which the isolated inhabitant of the Pacific islands knew 
nothing, till commerce had at length linked the world to- 
gether. Only with the improvements in navigation could 
civilization reach him. The European had to carry his 
culture to the New Zealander, his antipode. 

The ancients had little suspicion of all this. Yet the con- 
trast between the land world and the water world did not 
escape Strabo's keen glances, and he hints at its effects on 
man. It is glanced at in one passage of his 15th Book. He 
is speaking of the effect of the moist air of India in contrast 
with the dry air of Libya, and shows that he appreciates 
that these are not without their influence on the constitu- 
tion of the Indian and of the Ethiopian. " Some," he 
says, "rightly ascribe it to the sun, that, in the absence of 
moisture in their air, the rays burn so deeply into the body 
of the African ; the Indian, on the other hand, is not jet 
black and curly-haired, because, in his country, he enjoys 
the moisture in the atmosphere. " 

The Position of the Continents and its Influence on the 
Course of History. 

Besides the three great forms spoken of above — the com- 
pacted land-mass, the great water-mass, and the subordi- 
nate water-mass — the position of the continents leads us 
to another discovery of prime importance. 

The question arises. What relation have the continents, 
taken separately, to the entire mass which they constitute ? 
What relation do they bear to each other ? What influ- 
ence does the proximity of great land forms exercise? 
What Influence their remoteness from each other ? Is the 
arrangement of the continents fortuitous, or adapted to 



POSITION OP THE CONTINENTS, ETC. 4T 

great ends always held in view by the Creator? Has 
Nature been left in this to a wild, passionate caprice, or 
has she been subjected to law, and been compelled to sub- 
serve the interests of humanity ? And is it not worthy 
of study, worthy of science, to investigate these things, to 
master their law, and observe here the workings of the 
Divine Mind ? 

In the solar system, we have for a long time minutely 
studied matters of size and distance, the approach and re- 
ceding of planets, and observed the effects of all these 
things with an accuracy which could not be too thorough. 
In the study of our Earth, this has been neglected, be- 
cause heretofore those great tracts of land and water have 
seemed of little mutual influence ; because they are fixed 
forms. Yet they have a greater influence, perhaps, on this 
very account. Although there is in them no law of gravi- 
tation to study, yet there is in them the display of forces 
no less surprising than those of attraction, and which are 
to be read in the light, not of mathematics, but in the 
light of history. It indeed seems self-evident that a group- 
ing of these great forms cannot be without an influence on 
the progression or retarded development of nations; on 
the amount of population, the progress of colonization, 
and the union of States in offensive and defensive alliance. 
Should a higher Power throw the continents out of their 
present position and relation to each other, a new history 
of the world would date from this day. 

Here, then, is the primary element of history ; the laws 
of continental arrangement are the starting-point. Math- 
ematics has thrown a net-work of meridians and parallels 
over the surface of the globe ; but these lines exercise little 
influence over the course of history. The symmetry and 
regularity which they suggest do not belong to the earth ; 



48 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

the earth is not bounded, like a crystal, by right lines. 
There is a freer play than that mathematical mark of 
parallels and meridians suggests ; there is an interdepend- 
ence of the great land districts of the globe that these 
regular lines do not indicate ; a higher law of order, 
evolving the most perfect results from elements seem- 
ingly the most discordant. 

The Pyramidal Forms of the Great Land-masses, and 
their Southward Direction toward the Oceanic Hemi- 
sphere. 

The great land-mass of the globe accumulates in size 
as we advance toward the North Pole. South of 55° S. 
lat., the continental form disappears, and the tracts dis- 
covered of late years in the neighborhood of the South 
Pole are apparently islands, or rather long ice-coasts, 
whose continental form is very doubtful. The great land 
division, embracing both the old and the new worlds, 
reaches to about 80° N. lat., and the extreme points 
come even yet nearer to the Pole. The distances of one 
body from another, as, for instance, from Greenland to 
Iceland, are very small, in comparison with the immense 
spaces which divide the southern points of the continent, 
where the hundreds of miles of separation at the north 
expand into thousands. Expansion of the land-mass is 
the law at the north, contraction at the south. The great 
land formations terminate in wedge-shaped extremities, 
a fact observed by Lord Bacon, J. R. Porster, and Stef- 
fens ; America ending at Cape Horn, 55° S. lat. Aus- 
tra^a. which may be considered to embrace Tasmania or 
Yan Diemen's Land, at the southern extremity of the lat- 
ter, 45°, and Africa, at the Cape of Good Hope, 35° S. 
lat., respectively. Humboldt gave the name of "Pyra- 



PYRAMIDAL FORMS OF THE GREAT LAND-MASSES. 49 

rnidal Structure" to this cone-shaped form of the great 
land -mass, which, it will be observed, all are directed to- 
ward the south. This pyramidal structure contributes 
very much, unquestionably, to the diminished heat of the 
southern hemisphere, and has given a great predominance 
to the population of the northern in comparison with the 
southern ; and not in respect to number alone, but also to 
mental and moral force of character. 

But not the southern extremities alone of the continents 
exhibit this wedge-like form; it is repeated also in the 
northern countries of Europe and Asia. In Europe we 
discover the working of the law in the peninsulas of 
Spain, Italy, Greece, the Morea, and the Crimea, and also 
in the great Scandinavian peninsula. The same phe- 
nomenon is repeated on a scale far more imposing in Asia, 
in the great countries of Arabia, India, and Farther India, 
Corea, and Kamtchatka; also in both halves of America. 
Exceptions are rare. In Great Britain, the pointed ex- 
tremity is toward the north, and the greatest breadth at 
the south ; but this is a peculiar case, and has its excep- 
tional causes; and perhaps with reason, for this island 
has hitherto maintained an individual and exceptional 
character in the development of modern civihzation. 

Yarious explanations have been offered for the almost 
star-shaped figure which the combined body of great 
peninsulas assume, radiating, as it were, from the center 
of the land hemisphere. This is "seen very strikingly in 
looking at a horizontal projection of the northern hemi- 
sphere, viewed from the North Pole. There has been 
evidently the working out of some great design in this, 
and the forces employed must have been of the first order 
of magnitude. Cloden attributes it to the rotation of the 
earth in its plastic, formative state. Link ascribes it to 
E 7 



50 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

electrical forces, generated at the time the earth's crust 
was hardening into its present consistency. J. R. Forster 
finds an explanation in the theory, that formerly great cur- 
rents, now not existing, passed, or sought to pass, from 
south to north or northwest. He attributes to these the 
parallelism of the great gulfs which indent the coast-line 
of the old world, the uniform abruptness of the shores at 
the south, and the gradual widening of all the great land- 
masses as we go north. The Atlantic is a channel cleft 
by those great currents. Behring's Straits is a smaller 
one ; but everywhere else the effort was incomplete, and 
no opening was effected, except in the straits of minor 
importance, which separate island from island, or from 
the main land. The fossils discovered by Pallas seemed 
to favor this theory, but later investigation has showed 
that they do not. 

Link overthrew Forster's theory, yet the phenome- 
non is worthy of study. Viewed on a map of the land 
hemisphere, constructed according to Mercator's projec- 
tion, it is a storehouse of interesting observations and 
studies, and is to be recommended to the student's careful 
attention. We must pass over the theories ; scholars dis- 
agree as to the cause ; Pisis ascribes it to a hidden law 
of geometric construction ; Necker, Brewster, and Dana, 
to magnetism. We must simply accept the facts for the 
present. 

A careful study of the land surface of the.globe suggests 
interesting comparisons with what we know of the heav- 
enly bodies, Jupiter, for example, and our moon. Un- 
questionably, the entirely different grouping of what seem 
to be the great features of that luminary must have had 
an influence on the whole course of history there. We 
will not enter into speculations regarding this, however, 



SITUATION OF THE CONTINENTS. 51 

referring the reader rather to the thorough investigations 
of Beer and Madler. 

Situation of the Continents in their Relation to Each 
Other and to their Collective Whole. 

The relation which the continents bear to each other 
arises, primarily, from their position in reference to the 
cardinal points of the compass. This has been a princi- 
ple from the earliest times, and the great laws of popula- 
tion may, in their working, be referred to this simple law 
of grouping. 

Asia was known as the Orient, or, in the apt and beauti- 
ful German phrase, the Morgenland, or Land of the morn- 
ing; Europe and the northern rim of Africa, as the 
Occident, or, in the German, the Abendland, or Land of 
the evening. In the south lay the torrid regions of the 
Ethiopians, in the chill north the country of the Hyper- 
boreans. This fourfold division of the earth was for many 
centuries the only one known; the division into conti- 
nents being made, according to Herodotus, by the Pheni- 
cians. And in very truth, a great principle lay in that 
rude and primitive division ; it was in entire harmony 
with nature, and, up to the latest times and the opening 
of a new world, in entire harmony with history also. 
With Asia, the Orient, is connected indissolubly the de- 
velopment of the ancient world; with Europe, that of the 
modern. The conti'ast between these two great divisions 
is wonderfully analogous to that of morning and evening. 
The whole culture of the West had its root, its beginnings 
at the East. The East is not merely the place where the 
sun begins his daily course; it is the cradle of man, of 
nations, of dynasties of every sort, in politics, religion, 
and science. All the old royal houses came into Europe 



52 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

from the East; they are all "children of the sun," no less 
than the princely families of India and Persia. The West 
merely witnesses the progress of what was begun in the 
East. From the most ancient times onward through the 
Middle Ages, — from Homer to Dante's "Purgatorio," — 
the West is associated with the kingdom of the dead, with 
" Hades," and the " islands of the blest." And within these 
two great divisions of Orient and Occident are comprised 
smaller ones, adapted to more hmited conceptions of the 
extent of the earth, but growing out of the same root with 
the larger division. Bactriana and India constituted the 
Orient to the inhabitants of Western Asia, Syria their 
Occident ; Asia Minor was the Orient of the Greeks, Italy 
and Sicily their Hesperia ; while the Homans called Spain 
theirs. 

Between the Orient and Occident, and yet to the south 
of both, lay the Libya of the ancients, exposed to the sun's 
direct rays. In the very middle of the earth, on both 
sides of the equator, and not at the South Pole, is the 
true South. There we must seek the piienomena of the 
tropical world in their culminations. As high noon, the 
middle point in the hour, is the consummation of the day, 
so the torrid climes of the equatorial belt, at the very mid- 
dle of the earth, afford the extremes of luxuriant growth. 

The broad tracts of land at the northern polar regions 
formed the true physical contrast to the Orient and the 
Occident, as well as to the great South of central Africa. 
They lay around the North Pole like a vast shield of earth, 
unbroken except by the comparatively insignificant seas 
and gulfs of that region. And even where the water 
has broken its way and severed those northern lands, a 
submarine volcanic activity is, even now, constantly at 
work to restore the break, and bind the coasts together 



SITUATION OF THE CONTINENTS. 53 

At about Y0° N. lat., all the countries of the north are 
brought into great nearness, and that parallel is a highway 
of little else than land crossing the North Cape of Eu- 
rope, Cape Chelagskoy, in Tchooktchee, at the northeast- 
ern extremity of Asia, and touching Cape Bathurst, and 
the Fury aad Heckla Straits of North America. North 
of this highway and of the Georgian Archipelago begins 
the great group of circum- polar islands. 

The break between Asia and North America, at Behr- 
ing's Straits, is but fifty-six miles wide ; it is the mere 
outlet of the Sea of Kamtckatka into the Arctic Ocean. 
The space between the noi'theast of America and the 
northwest of Europe is much greater indeed, but, in 
comparison with the distance between the southernmost 
points of the old and the new world, insignificant. The 
distance from northern Norway to Greenland is but about 
940 miles. 

It is noteworthy that, at the north of the great conti- 
nental land-mass, where minor seas and channels break 
through, great volcanic forces are constantly at work, as 
hinted at above, to restore the unity. In the Sea of Kamt- 
chatka lie the Aleutian islands, extending more than 950 
miles, and forming what has been happily termed a bridge 
from the old world to the new. It consists of more than 
a hundred rocks and islands, some of which have been 
thrown up within the memory of man. In 1806, von 
Langsdorf and Tilesius witnessed the emergence of one 
of these, with a cone-shaped center, and about twenty 
miles in circumference. Grewingk has counted more than 
fifty volcanoes in activity within the limits of this island 
chain. The Curile islands, more to the south, form an- 
other similar volcanic group, extending from Japan to 
Kamtchatka. In this range there are known to be at 
least ten volcanoes, 10,000 feet in height. 
E* 



54 COMPAaATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

The same high degree of volcanic activity must have 
formerly existed between Europe and America, for the 
traces of it are still visible. And not the traces alone, but a 
part of the same activity. And doubtless the shallow^ness 
of the waters between those continents hints at the same. 
More accurate explorations, then, will probably reveal mul- 
titudes of mountains, thrown up by these submarine forces, 
but not far enough to emerge and bear the name of islands. 
Yet many have emerged^-those which fringe the shores of 
Norway, Scotland, and Ireland; the Orkneys, Shetland, 
and Hebrides islands ; the Faroe group, with their blistered 
surface, their recesses, and volcanic rocks ; Iceland, with 
its hot springs; and Mount Heckla; Jan Mayen, with its 
frightful craters, and the eastern coast of Greenland ; one 
island, Sabrina, in the midst of the Azore group ; which 
has had three upheavals within two hundred years, in 
1638, 1123, and 1811, — all these plainly indicate the pres- 
ence of tremendous forces, active in the past as well as in 
the present. 

We thus fix the character of the arctic polar lands to 
be a close drawing together. Europe has, fortunately for 
itself, the least share in those inhospitable regions ; only 
, her pointed northern shores fringe the shores of the 
polar sea, leaving the great bulk of the great land-mass 
of the north to the broad shores of Asia and North Ame- 
rica, with their neighboring island groups. 

This polar world, as we may call it, in contradistinction 
to the Orient and the Occident, is not separated from 
more southerly regions by any great physical line of de- 
markation. The arctic circle is a mere mathematical line 
66|° N. lat. ; it has no geographical character whatever. 
The true polar world reaches in some places far beyond 
this mathematical barrier, bringing all its characteristics 



SITUATION OP THE CONTINENTS. 55 

with it; while, on the other hand, it withdraws, at a few 
other places, nearer to the Pole. Were the polar world 
more broken up than it is bj inland seas, and separated 
from the great land-mass by broad channels, it would be 
far more isolated in its whole character than it is. It is 
this immediate contiguity of the polar world with the 
great land-mass which opens it to whatever civilization it 
may be able to receive. And there is the same unity in 
the polar world that there is in the tropical world. The 
same phenomena which appear in one part of it are re- 
peated in every other part. There are, of course, subor- 
dinate modifications found, but everything essential, which 
is discovered in one part, is discovered in every other part. 
There is no distinction into "new world" and no "old 
world;" the new world and the old coincide amid the 
arctic pole. 

The characteristic of the polar world, next to this of 
unbrokenness, is the simplicity, or what might be called 
the monotony of its productions and all its features ; the 
uniform reproduction of the same plants and animals, as 
well as of geological forms. Even Lapland, which is the 
farthest removed from the Pole of all the arctic regions, 
manifests, in its rounded and polished granite and gneiss 
and its deep and sharply-defined cuts, the same uniformity. 
The syenite found at Lake Imandra displays the same 
characteristics as that found on the islands in the White 
Sea, and on the shores of Greenland. The tops of the 
mountains, instead of being green, are all white with the 
lichen, commonly known as reindeer moss. And as with 
the geological formations and the vegetable kingdoms, 
so with the animal kingdom. Elsewhere are found bears, 
foxes, reindeer, seals, and walruses; the feathered tribes 
partake of the general monotony of structure, and man not 



56 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

less. The range of his development is extremely limited, 
and his character little different, whether in northern Asia 
or northern America. 

America forms the real West of the great land- mass, 
the true Occident of the earth, young as yet, but to receive 
as its gift the entire culture of the East, and to advance 
by giant steps to a position of independent influence. Al- 
ready it has far surpassed Asia in industry and civilization. 
The old world was the preparation for the new. Almost 
everything which the new world enjoys and values was 
the gift of the old. Its most ancient monuments of reli- 
gion, architecture, and art are closely linked to those of 
the old world. Hieroglyphics have been found among the 
Peruvians and the Mexicans. In like manner embalming 
of princes, the engraving of astronomical data upon rocks, 
were borrowed from the East. 

The historic character of America is more striking in 
respect to newness than the physical features of the water 
hemisphere. Buffon supposed that the American conti- 
nent is of more recent formation than the old world, as- 
signing for his opinion that it is more submei'ged, because 
smaller in area, than the eastern land-mass ; because, also, 
the plants which demand moisture are predominant over 
those which depend on a dry climate ; and because the 
forms of homologous animals — the elephant, rhinoceros, 
crocodile, turtle, apes, and serpents, for instance — do not 
attain the same size as in Asia and Africa. But waiving 
this, we use the name New World, only with significance 
in its connection with history. 

With the discovery of America begins a new period in 
the history of man and of nations in their civil relations. 
The enlargement of territory occasioned by it was not 
greater than the enlargement of the bounds of thought. 



SITUATION OF THE CONTINENTS. 57 

The old world had been developed earliest, had gone as 
far as it could go; it had to wait till another great step 
should be taken before it could go on in its course. The 
highest progress of the human race, the complete develop- 
ment of its possibilities, was not possible till man should, 
in his wanderings from east to west, compass the globe, 
and take possession of it, not for a day, but for all time. 
The primitive settlements in Mexico, Peru, and Yucatan 
could not sustain themselves in consequence of their iso- 
lation ; navigation was in its rudest stages, and it needed 
to be in its highest before the world should be bound 
together closely enough to advance in all its parts toward 
the goal of a perfect civilization. Those primitive colo- 
nies perished therefore, as Canaan perished before Israel, 
and were replaced by others. The reason of this lay in the 
isolation of the land-masses of the earth. Had America 
been discovered and made accessible to the old world be- 
fore the diffusion of the Gospel and the establishment of 
the Christian Church, it would have been too early, and 
heathenism might have had its grandest triumph and its 
loftiest temples in the new world. The way was not 
open as yet for the high moral development of the race ; 
and the highways of civilization were not made till the 
most modern times, when all was in readiness for the great 
advance which we are witnessing now. 

The contrast to the great continental hemisphere is 
found in Australia, aland-mass of no insignificant size, situ- 
ated' at the center, or very nearly at the center of the great 
oceanic hemisphere, and surrounded by hundreds of groups 
of islands, generally of quite unimportant magnitude. 
The name Australia was fitly chosen ; it indicates its true 
relations to the Southern or Austral ocean. As Africa is 
the true South to the eastern hemisphere, Australia is the 

8 



58 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

true South to the a:reat continental land-mass of the whole 
globe. As tne earth has two magnetic north poles, and 
two north poles of cold, one of the former in Siberia, north 
of Lake Baikal, and east of Cape Taimura, 110° east of 
Greenwich ; the other in the neighborhood of Melville 
Island, in North America, 102° west longitude from Green- 
wich, so there are, in a physical sense, two south poles, 
(we do not refer to the magnetic ones and the poles of cold,) 
a continental south pole in Africa, a marine or maritime 
south pole in Australia. 

This country, the largest of islands or the smallest of 
continents as we may choose to designate it, the most re- 
mote of all the great divisions from the center of the land 
hemisphere, has been the last to feel the pulses of civiliza- 
tion. There, therefore, is to-day the most rapid, the most 
amazing advancement to be witnessed on the earth ; it has 
crowded centuries into decades, and with its shores adorned 
even now, in its youth, with states and cities, it cannot 
longer be called a land left behind in the world's advance. 
It has inherited all that was finished in the knowledge and 
culture of the continental world ; what the people of that 
world have toiled for years to win, becomes at once the 
birthright of the Australians. It is only an instance of 
the truth of Humboldt's remark, that the more full the 
world is of ideas, the more rapid is its progress — a remark 
which throws the strongest light upon the connection of 
geography with history. 

The Historical Element in Geographical Science. 

While so many a spot in the great continental land-mass 
was once the home of a high culture, and from being a 
cradle of arts and sciences has become a deserted waste, 
the civil and political condition of many people in the re- 



THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN GEOGRAPHY. 59 

mote districts on the oceanic side of the globe has advanced 
with unprecedented rapidity. The course of development 
has been very difiFerent from what it was formerly.' Dis- 
tances, natural influences, natural productions even, yield 
always to the victorious march of man, and disappear be- 
fore his tread ; or, in other words, the human race is 
more and more freed from the forces of nature ; man is 
more and more disenthralled from the dominion of the earth 
which he inhabits. The history of specific' districts and of 
entire continents confirms this. 

The first inhabitant of the sandy valley of the Nile was 
a dweller in a waste, as the nomadic Arab is to-day. But 
the later and more cultivated Egyptians transformed that 
waste, through the agency of irrigation and canals, into 
the most fruitful garden of the world. They not only rose 
themselves, but raised their own country, hitherto so sterile, 
into a place of the first importance, and did it by the 
simplest of means, — the bringing the water and the land 
into more intimate relations. Through neglect and the 
tyranny of successive kings, the fruitful valley sank again 
into its waste condition. The district around Thebes 
became a desert, the fruitful Mareotis a swamp ; similar 
phenomena occurred in many parts of Europe and Asia. 

Another example of man's subjugation of nature is 
found in great mountain chains. During the first centu- 
ries after Christ, the cultivated south of Europe was sepa- 
rated from the uncultivated Celtic and Teutonic north by 
a great natural barrier, the unbroken, untraversed Alpine 
chain, which passed through all central Europe from west 
to east. At the south lay the rich states of the old world, 
beyond the Alps^was the cold and barren north. But this 
old formidable barrier has vanished, as the thronged cantons 
of Switzerland and the crowded villages of the Tyrol 



60 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

yearly bear witness ; and they draw thousands of tourists 
instead of repelling them. What a mighty change 1 
From 'Provence to Styria run the stately forms of the 
Alpine chain ; but the deep recesses and the lofty highlands 
are thickly peopled, the forests are thinned, the obstructing 
rocks removed. No longer a barrier between the north 
and the south, as it was in the time of Julius and Augustus 
Caesar, Switzerland has become a country of stupendous 
highways. The peaks which were once unapproachable, 
and around which merely eagles idly flew, are now the 
passes of Mount Cenis, the Simplon, Saint Gothard, the 
Spliigen, and Saint Bernard; while the snowy heights of 
Ortler, in eastern Alps, now give place to a, public road. 
Over the Semmering Alp a railway even passes. Just as 
the wild horse of Toorkistan has given up his freedom and 
has become the tame and useful servant of civilization, so 
this Alpine segment of the globe has changed all its rela- 
tions to the adjacent countries. The influence of the most 
stupendous natural objects is weakened every year. The 
physical dimensions may and do remain unchanged, but 
their influence on life and on history is undermined by 
those new conditions which operate so powerfully in free- 
ing man from the dominion of nature. The power of man 
makes him master of the earth, and gives even the key to 
the subjection of the grandest mountain chains into his 
hands. 

]n further illustration of this, take the TJral chain, which 
was and still is the eastern division line of one continent, 
and the western barrier of another, but which has become, 
since the days of Peter the Great, a grand center of labor 
and commerce, a great avenue of civilization in its return 
passage from Europe to Asia. And so everywhere,, from 
the wild Caucasus and the Himalayas to the grand Cor- 



THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN GEOGRAPHY. 61 

dilleras of America, the same progress is seen ; man be- 
comes more and more the conqueror over nature. And 
not in mountains alone, but in the great forest regions of 
central Europe, in the primitive wilderness of North 
America, and in the marshes of the Netherlands, does man 
vanquish the forces which once fettered him. The once 
fearful wastes of Sahara have become the track of cara- 
vans; the sterile plains of Australia and California have 
drawn great colonies to their gold mines; the ice seas at 
the north have become, through the efforts of Parry, 
Franldin, and others, the scene of heroic exploits and of 
grand struggles of man with nature ; indeed, the greatest 
victories of modern civilization have been there, and the 
playgrounds of polar bears and walruses have witnessed 
the noblest humanities, and the loftiest courage, and the 
most disinterested heroism of the age. 

The continents and oceans have witnessed still greater 
transformations. The seas were once the impassable bar- 
riers of nations. The birds of the air only traversed the 
great distances which separated shore from shore. The 
metallic stores of the earth, the vegetable and animal 
kingdoms were not transferred to any extent from place to 
place ; the sea brought nothing from lands remotely 
foreign but drift-sand, cocoa-nuts, floating wood, ice masses, 
and seaweed, swept by the great currents from shore to 
shore. But now the seas are no barriers ; they do not 
separate the continents but bind them together, and unite 
the destinies of nations in the closest manner. The great 
improvements in ocean navigation have entirely changed 
the relations of the entire globe. The isolated island of 
St. Helena, which was for centuries at the very confines of 
the known world, became, within the second decade of the 
present century, a prison-house for the great European 



62 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

robber, and lay guarded under the e3'^e of Europe. The 
Cape of Good Hope, which was for centuries the limit of 
Portuguese navigation, has become a mere halting-place for 
sailing ships and steamers. The voyage from England 
to China has been narrowed, within one hundred years, 
from an eight months' to a four months' sail. These great 
changes have been mainly effected by the agency of steam. 
Steam has transformed the smaller seas into mere bridges, 
and England and France are securely joined, Marseilles 
and Algiers ; while Prussian Stettin is brought into prox- 
imity with Swedish Stockholm and Russian Petersburg. 
The voyage to America, that remote land, which before 
the days of Columbus was as inaccessible as the moon, 
was made by him in seventy days, but is now accomplished 
in ten. Even Australia cannot be said to be distant; a 
steamer needs but seventy-five days to reach it, and ten of 
those are consumed on the Isthmus of Suez. No island 
now lies beyond the world of commerce. The most active 
traffic exists between places the most remote. The wool 
and the wheat of Australia control the price of those 
commodities in London, and the value of cotton in 
America fixes that of woven goods and even of bread in 
Europe. 

The great rivers too have been curtailed of their rela- 
tive importance, and have been shortened by steam six- 
fold. They can be stemmed too, which is an immense 
gain, for in the primitive stages of navigation they could 
only be sailed upon downward, from source to mouth. 
In 1854, four hundred steamers traversed the Mississippi 
and its branches, and came into contact with a region 
one-third as large as Europe. The Indus, Ganges, Irra- 
waddy, Nile, La Plata, and even the Amazon, the monarch 
of rivers, which drains a country half as large as Europe, 



THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN GEOGRAPHY. 63 

are now more or less open to steam navigation. The great 
river systems of central Europe too are thoroughly navi- 
gated ; and Southern Germany, Trebizond, Mayence, Co- 
logne, and London may be grouped as neighbors. The 
land-locked seas are reduced to insignificance, and their 
shores are now covered with villages and cities, from the 
Platten-See of Hungary up to the Caspian and the great 
lakes of North America. 

To sum all up in one word, the mighty influence of 
Time on the geographical development of the earth is 
displayed in the clearest manner. But this influence is 
not the same for all localities on the globe. While there 
are some people and some places which are left behind, 
there are others which have made wonderful progress, and 
have taken and now hold a foremost place. And such a 
position is that of Europe at the present moment. Europe, 
the most central of all continents, in relation to the great 
land-mass of the earth, and also the one most equally 
removed from the middle point of the great water-mass, 
touches the whole remaining world at the greatest number 
of points, and this, in conjunction with her remarkably 
broken coast-line, so favorable to the purposes of navi- 
gation, have given her her place of command, and have 
assigned to England her evident role of mistress of the 
seas. 

And looking from the present to the past, we see thai 
as some great tribes of men have given the whole fruits 
of their natural existence to the world for its future use, so 
some places, and those of no insignificant size sometimes, 
have conferred upon the world, the trust which they once 
held, and now recede, as it were, from view. They were 
great in the past, and the results of their greatness are 
now incorporated in the world's life. The earth is one ; 



64 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

and through the agency of what we may call either time 
or history, all its parts are in ceaseless action and reaction 
on each other. Though some great districts seem now tc 
have no part to play, the element of time draws them into 
the great cosmos; they once had a great share in the 
world's affairs, and the fruits which they brought to com- 
pletion are merely in other hands. The earth is, therefore, 
as was stated in the introduction, a unit, an organism 
of itself: it has its own law of development, its own cos- 
mical life ; it can be studied in no one of its parts and at 
no special epoch of its history. The past and the future, 
the near and the remote, are all blended in a system of 
mutual intei'dependence, and must be looked at together. 

This is shown clearly in the past of Asia, and the 
present of Europe and some parts of the new world, while 
the history of all central Africa seems to lie wholly in the 
future Heretofore it has enjoyed no progress excepting 
along its northern rim. The middle portion of the old 
world has outlived its primitive ethnographical impulse, 
and sunk back into a state of slumberous inaction. 
Asia, to call this region by its recognized name, has pro- 
jected its own life from the center to the circumference ; by 
this I mean, that while it seems to be exhausted of its old 
vigor, other countries inherited its power. The population 
of Asia is much less than it was in the time of Alexander 
the Great, much less than during the Mohammedan and 
Mongolian conquests, when all the habitable parts of that 
immense continent were bound together by highways of 
commerce and travel. On the other hand, the coasts are 
now of much more value and significance than they were 
in ancient times, and navigation has dotted her sea outline 
with splendid and populous cities. These seem, by reason 
of the facilities which steam affords, to be brought near to 



THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN GEOGRAPHY 65 

Europe; while the natives who inhabit central Asia are 
not only widely separated from the civilized world, but are 
divided up and set against each other by religious and 
political enmities of the most bitter kind. This is dis- 
played in its fullest force by the comparative inapproacha- 
bility of the great mountain chains, the TJral, the Taurus, 
and the Caucasus, and yet more by the unchanged bar- 
barism of the central tribes, the hostile political relations, 
lacking all of the amenities and mutual dependencies of 
European policy, and the deadly antagonism of Moham- 
medanism and Christianity. This last is the curse which 
the natives of the earth have brought upon themselves. 
It is the clashing of religious faiths which has put the 
extinguisher on Asiatic progress, annihilated her enter- 
prise, and set her in her present isolation. Still this 
barrier is not absolutely settled and for all time, but already 
it shows that it is capable of some modification. The 
politico-religious system of the Chinese is rending under 
our eyes ; the old bonds which Mohammedanism once laid 
on Asia are now sensibly relaxed. The great highways of 
travel through the country of the Euphrates and Tigris 
and the extended archaeological investigations of modern 
times have operated mediatorially between Europe and 
Asia ; while steam navigation on the Danube has brought 
Turkey, a hitherto undissolved Asiatic element in European 
life, into closer relations with the great powers of the 
West. The great missionary enterprise, too, of modern 
times, has been laboring to remould the ideas of the 
Asiatic nations, while navigation has' operated on the 
material and more appreciable interests of commerce and 
industry. 

There are no possible limits to be assigned to the 
perfectibility of the globe as the abode of man ; no possible 
F* 9 



GG COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

bouTids to his enterprise. Tlie construction of a canal 
through the Isthmus of Panama would bring the eastern 
coast of Asia seven thousand miles nearer than it is 
now to the Atlantic shores of America and Europe. Bj 
saving the mere doubling of Cape Horn, one-third of the 
periphery of the globe would be annihilated, so far as the 
labor and expense of navigation are concerned. North 
America would nearly double its resources when its Atlantic 
and Pacific coasts stand in close connection and interde- 
pendence. The projected canal at Suez would exercise an 
unbounded influence over Asia in binding it anew to Europe. 
The building of highways through the passes of the Ural, 
the Caucasus, and Himalayas is yet to be accomplished ; 
and only now are great roads constructing over the Rocky 
Mountains, welding North America together. The con- 
struction of railways on the high plateaus of central Africa 
will transform that vast undeveloped district, so rich in 
resources for the future. The changes which art is yet to 
effect on our globe are beyond all possible computation, 
and it might be said, beyond any possible exaggeration. 

We turn away from these glances into the future to 
look upon the past, the long ages when men lived in rude- 
ness and ignorance, having no art, and knowing nothing 
beyond the little tract where they were born, and to which 
they remained chained. There was no binding of shore 
to shore, and of continent to continent, through the media- 
torial agency of seas and oceans And this gave to the 
continents a far greater individuality than they have now, 
and a much higher degree of apparent influence than now 
when we cannot view them excepting as parts of the great 
complex which forms the world. The wanderings of the 
old nomadic races, the enlarging of the domains of culture, 
the transfer of the natural productions of all climes, as 



THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN GEOGRAPHY. 67 

well as the traditional ideas of all lands, proceeded from 
the central portions of the ancient world toward the 
extremities. The manner of this progress, following as it 
does the order of history, displays more clearly than almost 
anything else the close dependence of all national devel- 
opment upon geographical conditions, and their indissoluble 
connection. Without this connection the order of historical 
events would have been completely changed. In no instance 
has there been self-evolved progress in the North, East, 
South, or West ; it uniformly began at the geographical 
center, at the point of conflict between the Orient, the 
Occident, and the tropical South. 

Western Asia, northern Africa, and southeastern Europe 
were the homes of the earliest culture, and it is to them 
that all other parts of the world owe the light which they 
enjoy, though they may have received it at second orthh'd 
hand. The territory of which I speak extended from the 
highlands of India to Italy, and from the Nile to the Don, 
including the valleys of the Euphrates and the Gihon. 
This broad and fertile reach of territory has been the 
fruitful mother of the world's present thought and culture. 
Nor must we overlook the fact that, despite what was 
said above, regarding the oceans as the greatest barriers 
to the spi'ead of civilization, that smaller seas aided it, for 
the very country of which I speak was intersected by five 
important seas, and to them it is under immeasurable 
obligations for its development. This Asiatic- Africo- 
Eui'opean belt has exercised the greatest influence on all 
the course of human affairs, on all colonization, on the 
differing of races and languages, and the arts of war and 
of peace, over the habitable world. This territory lies 
as the background of all the events of history, and has 
given to every one its distinctive character and its appro- 



G8 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

priate place. Nor can we in the future dispense with the 
element involved in this, of historical occurrences yet to 
come dependent on past geographical conditions, although 
this will be far less marked than it has been in the past. 
It demands and will demand a far larger measure of 
investigation and thought than it has yet received. What- 
ever independent progress the New World and Australia 
may seem to be making, and whatever interest they may 
awaken in the minds of students, not even they can be 
looked at without regard to their relations to the ancient 
historical lands, the source of all the inherited culture 
which they are enjoying in their vigorous youth. India, 
Egypt, Palestine, Greece, and other countries still stand 
out as the formative lands of all modern history, and we 
cannot study the present without studying them. They are 
to the student what Plutarch's Lives are to the biographer, 
the imperishable and unequaled models Avhich gain new 
luster as time rolls on. It is therefore not without reason 
that ancient geography ought to be subjected to a more 
systematic treatment than the geography of the Middle 
Ages. The latter, though not unworthy of a large place, 
had no relations of special importance to the whole world, 
to the study of the physical conditions of the most impos- 
ing objects of nature, to the connection as cause and effect 
of events past, present, and to come. 

From these foundation principles, we advance to a more 
fi'll study of the configuration of the surface of the globe, 
for which we are now in a measure prepared. 



jpj^:Rn: ii. 



A more extended Investig-ation regarding the Earth's 
Surface. 

It is the province of Hydrography to deal with the 
oceanic world ; Geography proper concerns itself simply 
with solid forms. The Hydrography of the globe we must 
pass over, however. Aside from the fact that it would lead 
us into studies of the most protracted nature, it forms 
strictly one department of nautical science. Besides, there 
is the less occasion to speak of it here at length, that works 
of great excellence have been published, relating to that 
branch. We turn therefore to the land, and shall study the 
world of waters only so far as it exerts influence on the 
land. 

By land we mean the islands as well as the continents, 
for, as remarked before, the difference between them is 
merely relative. To the land division of the globe, how- 
ever, belong all rivers and the internal fresh water lakes, 
however large. The basis of difference does not lie in the 
fact that one part of the globe is water, the other part land, 
but in the fact that one is a tract of uniform evenness, the 
other of constantly varying surface, the internal rivers and 
lakes only being frills, so to speak, to the elevated region, 
and not sharing the sea level of the great oceanic mass. 
Uniformity of surface is then the chief characteristic of 
the sea ; a lack of it, of the land. A mathematical level is 

r69) 



to COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY, 

a thing unknown on extended districts, and an approxima- 
tion to it is very rare. Even tlie basins of former seas do 
not display a perfectly level bed. The plains of North 
Germany are characterized by this billowy rolling. The 
flats along the Danube, in Hungary, and along the Po, in 
North Italy, have really important deviations from a true 
level, though the eye is not able to discern them. Milan 
is four hundred feet above the Adriatic; but the eye does 
not discern that it is not at the center of a plain as perfect 
as the surface of the sea itself, and yet that plain does 
shelve gradually away till the Adriatic checks and defines 
it. Pesth is two hundred and fifteen feet above the ocean 
level, yet the gradual decline to the Black Sea is undis- 
cernible to the eye. The immense plains along the Amazon, 
even the celebrated llanos on the Orinoco, which Alexander 
von Humboldt likens to inland seas of verdure, have a 
not insignificant slope from west to east. The middle 
point of these llanos near the City of Calabozo, about 100 
geographical miles from the sea, he found to be 180 feet 
above the sea level; far lower indeed than Milan or Pesth, 
relatively, yet at a perceptible elevation. All of these 
plains were once the bottom of the sea ; the Adriatic laved 
the base of the Apennines and the Cottian Alps, and the 
Atlantic swept westward over the llanos of the Orinoco 
and the Essequibo, having the Sierra de Venezuela on the 
north and the Sierra Parima on the south, till it was checked 
by the Cordilleras of Merida and Pamplona. 

Depression and elevation, then, are the characteristics 
of the land. They are both measured from the level of the 
sea ; their absolute altitude is reckoned from the imagin- 
ary sea level, extended over the whole globe. Their mutual 
relations to each other are determined from their relative 
heisrhts. The absolute elevation above the level of the 



INVESTIGATION OP THE EARTH'S SURFACE. 71 

ocean can be determined in a number of ways. If the 
heights to be measured are in the immediate vicinity of the 
sea, a simple system of triangulation will effect it. If they 
are removed from the sea, the difficulties are greater, and 
increase according to the distance from the sea.- The 
heights of great inland mountains are determined by 
complicated operations with the spirit-level, protracted 
trigonometrical calculations, the unwearied and skillful 
use of the barometer, and constant appeal to the boiling 
point of water. The description of these methods falls 
within the province of Physics. 

As the determination of the heights of the loftiest 
mountains could not be made before the appointments of 
scientific explorers have attained to a certain degree of 
accuracy and delicacy, the knowledge of them in former 
times was almost wholly relative. The inquiries of La 
Condamine, Saussure, and de Luc, in the Andes and the 
Swiss Alps, are almost the only ones to be trusted am<ing 
those of the older observers. All unscientific travelers 
without accurate instruments confounded absolute heights 
with relative heights, and innumerable errors crept there- 
fore into the earlier text- books. It is only within the 
most recent times that Hypsometry has attained to the 
dignity of a science. 

To meet and counteract the errors alluded to above, and 
current in the loose language of popular speech, we shall 
use a new and indeed arbitrary terminology, — arbitrary be- 
cause the data which mensuration will sometim es furnish are 
now, in part, wanting. We will divide the earth not rela- 
tively, but absolutely, into highlands and lowlands. The 
great districts often met, whose elevations are very moder- 
ate, we call lowlands. They are, for the most part, im- 
mense plains, varied but little above the level of the sea. 



T2 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

The great districts which inclose mountain ranges we call 
highlands, and sometimes plateaus. True highlands can 
often embrace very extended and elevated plains, and these 
plains again may include hills and mountains. This does 
not affect their character as highlands, which lies in the 
fact of elevation rather than in more or less modified 
variation of surface. There may be vast variety in the 
physical manifestations of a great plateau district, entirely 
independent of the relative effects produced by the dis- 
tribution of its surface into plains, rolling land, hills, and 
mountains. 

In the lowlands there may exist hills to some extent, 
and these may even be combined in ranges, provided only 
that they do not violate the uniform characteristics of the 
district in which they are found. 

The highlands are generally met with in the interior of 
the continents ; the lowlands at the coasts. Yet there are 
exceptions to this. 

In the transitions from lowlands to highlands there is 
great diversity. We can speak of three distinct bases of 
discrimination : a sudden and abrupt ascent ; a rise in 
elevation so gradual as scarcely to be perceived ; and a 
terrace formation. Yet in these there is a blending of 
one variety with another ; there is no place sharply 
marked, where we can say that one form ends and another 
begins. There are constantly found modifications of these 
three transitional phases. The plains along the Indus 
and the Ganges rise sharply to the plateaus of Thibet. 
The flat Pacific coast of South America is exchanged 
with equal abruptness for the highlands of Peru. The 
transition is a gradual one from the lowlands of North 
Germany, along the Baltic and the North Sea, through 
Saxony and Bohemia to the Bavarian highlands, north of 



HIGHLANDS. 73 

the Alps. The Spanish highlands form a series of ter- 
races, increasing in height from south to north. The im- 
mense plateaus of central Asia are also terrace formations, 
of diminishing elevation, as they advance to Siberia; so, 
too, are the eastern plateaus of Peru, falling off in altitude 
toward the plains of the Amazon. 

Just as varied are the heights taken from the sea level 
of the leading plateaus. Yet they never rise to a point 
of elevation comparable with those of isolated mountain 
peaks or ranges. These attain, in no insignificant num- 
bers, the height of 24,000 feet, while some ascend thou- 
sands of feet beyond that. In Mount Everest, of the 
Himalaya chain, the loftiest summit yet measured (29,000 
feet) is found ; although it may be that future investiga- 
tions more to the south will disclose yet greater heights. 

Highlands. 

Continuous highlands or plateaus seldom attain an ele- 
vation greater than a half or a third of the loftiest mount- 
ains ; the most elevated range in altitude, from 8000 to 
12,000 feet above the sea level. On an average, they lie 
about 4000 to 5000 feet above the sea. We take the last 
height as a convenient point of demarkation between the 
two classes of highlands — those of the first and those of 
the second magnitude. It is an arbitrary point, of course, 
and the division there must remain, without a natural base 
to rest upon, till more results in Hypsometry shall have de- 
termined the real point of average between the combined 
lowlands and the combined highlands of the earth's sur- 
face. Meantime this division will be of great service to 
us in enabling us to bring into a definite and appreciable 
classification many facts which would otherwise not be so 
well understood in their relations. 
G 10 



74 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAniY. 

Highlands or Plateaus of the First Glass. 

By plateaus of the first class, we mean those high, con- 
tinuous plains which lie at the elevation of more than 
from 4000 to 5000 feet above the sea level. The extreme 
height to Avhich such plateaus rise is a fact yet to be ascer- 
tained. At an elevation of from 4000 to 5000 feet the 
highlands of the first class merge into those of the second. 
The point of transition is, of course, very difficult to fix 
with precision. 

The high plateaus of Asia rise more than 14,000 feet. 
They inclose the head-waters of the Ganges and the 
Indus. All central Asia is a vast congeries of highlands ; 
but, as a body, they by no means belong to the most ele- 
vated of the globe. They are colossal in their length and 
breadth, but not in their uniform altitude. In the latter 
respect, they are far more varied than is generally sup- 
posed. 

The plateau of Thibet attains, in its whole great extent 
of 1800 miles in length and 500 miles in breadth, an average 
elevation of 10,800 feet above the sea level. In some 
cases it rises, of course, much higher, as, near the holy 
lake Manasarowar, for instance, where it is 14,000 feet 
above the sea. Others sink, as at Ladakh, in Little Thibet, 
to an altitude of about 9000 feet; so, too, Gertope, in the 
region remarkable for its goats and the rich shawls manu- 
factured there, and Shiffke, ai'e about 9804 feet above the 
sea. The plateau of Great Thibet, east of Lassa, the 
capital, and north of the Upper Brahmapootra or Yam- 
Dzangbotscha, is 9000 feet in elevation. There are also 
districts filled with mountain groups of great heights, but 
where the depressions sink to the level of the valleys of the 
Indus, Sutlej, Brahmapootra, as low indeed as 5460 feet. 



PLATEAUS OP THE FIRST CLASS. t5 

as at Cashmere, so that there is no lack of diversity in the 
great plateau of Thibet. 

The plateau of Mongolia, or more exactly the desert of 
Gobi, can be ranked only on its lower edges, where it 
touches the Chinese frontier, as of the first class, although 
in extent it is twice as large as the great plateau of Thi- 
bet. Only near the north bend of the Hoang-Ho and near 
Peking does it reach an altitude of 8000 feet, and gradually 
sinks away as it advances toward the northern frontier of 
the Chinese territory, to 5100 feet, and farther north to 
4000 feet; in the middle portions of the great table-land 
it is depressed to a height of 2400 to 3600 feet; it rises 
again at the head-waters of the Orkhon and the Toola to 
an elevation of 4620 feet, and falls off in terraces toward 
Kiakhta, near the northern boundary, where it is 1330 feet 
high, Selenghinsk, on the Selenga, where it is 1632 feet high, 
and Berch-Udaisk, where it is 1458 feet high, till it reaches 
Lake Baikal, 1332 feet above the sea level according to 
Humboldt, though Erman makes it greater. 

Western Mongolia, (west of the meridian of Lassa, and 
west of the point where the Tarine flows into Lake Lop,) 
upper Bokhara, and upper Toorkistan were formerly con- 
sidered to be a highland district; this is now subject to 
doubt. We shall discuss this further on. 

Africa, too, has highlands of the first class, which, how- 
ever, do not rise to the extreme height of the plateau of 
Thibet. As in Asia, so in central Africa, the old supposi- 
tion of the existence of a plateau of colossal extent has 
been very much done away with by the more exact and 
critical modern investigations. The strip of territory lying 
between 4° and 10° north latitude has been demonstrated 
by Barth and Vogel to be destitute of highlands. The 
range of mountains announced as discovered by Mungo 



1Q COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

Park, and called the Kong Mountains, is proved to have 
no real existence, and of course his statement fails of 
verification that that range is the northern limit of an 
elevated central plateau. The peaks which really do rise 
in the Kong territory form no continuous ridge ; they are 
mere isolated groups of moderate height. Between these 
groups the lowlands continue toward the south, in an un- 
broken level, for an immense distance. How far south of 
the equator the central African plateau begins, is yet unas- 
certained, for the snow-tipped peaks of Kilimandjaro and 
Kenia, discovered by Rebmann and Krapf, in the parallel 
of Mombas, 1° to 3° south latitude, are of immense height, 
it is true, but they do not demonstrate the existence of a 
plateau of the first class there. They rise out of table-land 
about 2000 feet above the sea level, which Krapf explored 
in the year 1849. 

The Abyssinian plateau, on the contrary, takes rank 
among the most elevated on the globe. At 10° north 
latitude, south of the sources of the Blue Nile, lies Upper 
Abyssinia, or the kingdom of Shoa, with its capitals, 
Ankobar and Angolalla, 10,000 feet above the sea. Still 
farther to the north, in the ancient kingdom of Gondar, 
the German naturalist Eiippel ascertained the level of 
Lake Tzana to be TOOOfeet above the ocean ; to the south- 
ward of that the land rises to a still greater height, and 
northward of Gondar the plateau ascends to an elevation 
of 8000 feet, and mountains are met with 14,000 feet high. 
The terrace of Axaw on the east is 6650 feet above the 
Red Sea, which lies along its border. 

To the south of Shoa lie the highlands of Kaflfa and 
Enarea. All travelers agree in the statement that the 
inhabitants of that region are light-complexioned ; and 
Johnson draws from this the conclusion that the central 



PLATEAUS OF THE FIRST CLASS. It 

plateau must rise to a height of over 10,000 feet to harbor 
people of a whiter hue than the dwellers of the less 
elevated localities. He saw a number of men of light 
complexion who came as far as from the fifth degree 
south latitude, not from mountain homes, but from high 
table-lands. 

The plateau of South Africa rises at Lattakoo, in the 
country of the Bechuanas, north of the Orange River, to 
the height of 6000 feet. To the east, near the Snow 
Mountains, where the river has its source, it ascends to an 
altitude of over 10,000 feet. To the north, discovery had 
made great progress since 1849. There, on a broad 
plateau, Oswell and Livingstone brought to the knowledge 
of the world the existence of Lake Ngami, whose surface 
is 2825 feet above the level of the sea. The plateau which 
includes this lake at its place of deepest depression cannot 
be less than 3000 feet high, and at some localities yet 
higher. Still more to the north, at latitude 14° south, on 
the water-shed between the Zaire or Congo on the west and 
the Zambeze in the east, the plateau reaches an elevation 
of 5000 feet, according to Livingstone. Yet farther to the 
west, it rises still higher and takes undisputed rank among 
plateaus of the first class. There, at 18° south latitude, 
Galtne, on his journey of discovery in 1850, ascended the 
table-land of Ovompa, a region of great natural produc- 
tivity. On the way thither, going from south to north, at 21° 
south latitude, and therefore in the parallel of Lake Ngami, 
but about 500 miles westward, he ascended north of the 
Swakop River, the table-land of Demara, which he found 
to be 6000 feet high. From that plateau, mountains, 
Koniati and Ometako, for instance, rise to a height of 
8800 feet. From the Swakop River to Lake Ngami there 
is a continuous plateau. 
G* 



t8 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

The high table-land of southern central Africa does not 
then extend, as was once supposed, as far north as 9°. 
north latitude, nor even to the later limit of 4^° north 
latitude ; but at about 4° 10' the distinction between low- 
land and highland seems to be sharply drawn, as the cata- 
racts which terminate the navigation of the White Nile 
indicate. Here Father Knoblecher turned back in 1849, 
but he ascended the first of the mountains which there 
began to rise ; his eye reached onward to mountains very 
near or on the equator. He says that those high mount- 
ains stand upon an elevated table-land. Thus, here at 
the source of the White Nile we have a plateau seem- 
ingly of the first rank. From such a plateau it is probable 
that the snow-capped mountains, seen by Rebmann and 
Krapf in the neighborhood of the equator, rose, which 
they thought, approaching from the eastern coast, held 
the source of the Nile. 

At the northwest of A.frica^ too, at 10° north latitude, 
the territory which feeds the springs of the Senegal and 
the Niger is supposed to be a plateau of great elevation 
and of great extent. But at present our lack of knowl- 
edge prevents our attaining certainty regarding it. No 
thorough system of measurement has been yet applied 
there. 

America possesses a number of plateaus of the first 
class. To the most prominent of these belong the ones 
which were first thoroughly studied by Alexander von 
Humboldt. It is to him that we owe our first accurate 
impressions of table-lands which, before his day, had been 
indiscriminately confounded with mountains, and had had 
no place assigned to them in the department of Geogra- 
phy. Doubtless, too, great prominence was given to pla- 
teaus at the outset ; they were pushed into unseemly pro- 



PLATEAUS OP THE FIRST CLASS. 79 

portion to other matters as well worthy of investigation, 
but they have come into their true place, and now only 
wait the development of new facts regarding the size 
and height of some, to be properly understood and 
appreciated. 

The measurements made in North, Central, and South 
America give the following results ; much more complete, 
it may be remarked, than the results yet gained in Asia and 
Africa. 

To the plateaus of the first class belong in America, at 
latitude 0°, the plain of Quito, almost 9000 feet above the 
sea, (Los Pastes in the north being near 11,000 feet,) and 
to the south, at 11° south latitude, the plateau of Upper 
Peru. Here the great Lake Yiticaca is found, 12,000 feet 
above the sea ; eastward of the lake, the table-land rises 
yet higher, and at Alto de Toleda it is 14,000 feet in ele- 
vation, as high as the highest part of Thibet. At 20° 
south latitude, south of Lake Yiticaca, is the City of 
Potosi, whose streets are 12,822 feet above the Pacific. 

In Central America is found, at 20° north latitude, the 
extended table-land of Mexico, 500 miles wide, rising to a 
height of TOOO feet, and farther to the north, in New 
Mexico, the plateau of Santa Fe, 35° north latitude east 
of the Rocky Mountains, and 1 100 feet above the sea. 
The table-land on the west side of the mountains, and 
toward the Great Salt Lake, is undoubtedly just as 
elevated. 

Europe and Australia are wanting in plateaus of the 
first rank, and in general the whole immense flat northern 
districts of the globe, though we are not yet quite familiar 
enough with the extreme north of America to speak with 
entire confidence regarding it. 



80 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY, 

Plateaus of the Second Glass. 

Elevated plains which are at once continuous and 
bounded by a definite line of demarkation, and which do 
not attain an altitude of more than 4000 or 5000 feet, are 
considered plateaus of the second class. They ai'e far 
more general over the whole earth than plateaus of the 
first class ; in every one of the great divisions of the globe 
they appear in the utmost possible diversities of elevation, 
sometimes so gradually ascending that the lowest limit is 
hardly to be perceived. This makes it not only expedient 
but necessary to assign to plateaus a fixed though arbi- 
trary system of classification, for without it we could attain 
to no thorough view of all their relations. This general 
system must afterward be confirmed and justified by pro- 
tracted special investigations. 

That not all the vast plains of Central Asia, from Thibet 
to the Altai Mountains, and from the Belur range to the 
Chinese Gobi, belong to the first class of plateaus, has 
been demonstrated by the Russian measurements, made by 
Fuss and Bunge in 1832, between Lake Baikal, Kiakhta, 
and Peking, and rendered highly probable by the investi- 
gations of Klaproth, Humboldt, and Zinimermann. To- 
ward the northwest the plateaus generally sink from the 
moderate elevation of the Middle Gobi, 4000 feet, to Lake 
Baikal, 1332 feet above the sea, Lake Zaison, not 1000 
feet above the sea, and the border of the plateau at Choi- 
mailocha, the Chinese frontier post on the Siberian line, 
1000 feet above the sea, then to the lower border of the 
plateau of Bookhtarminsk (936 feet) and Semipalatinsk 
on the Irtish, (708 feet,) where the great Siberian plain 
begins. In the valley of the Tai'im and of Lake Lop, 
pomegranates and grapes thrive, and cotton, which has 



PLATEAUS OP THE SECOND CLASS. 



81 



been raised of an excellent quality in Eelee, is found at a 
height of from 1200 to 2000 feet. And in contrast with 
the great arctic plain of Northern Asia, not 500 feet above 
the level of the sea, this central plateau will take its place 
as distinctively of the second rank. 

The plateau of Persia lies on the border of both classes ; 
for while the central portion touches 4000 feet, some parts 
rise much higher and some sink much deeper than the 
normal point. These balance each other, and the average 
is about the maximum elevation of plateaus of the second 
degree. 

East of the Persian plateau lies the plateau of Cabool, 
6000 feet above the sea. On the northern edge of Afgha- 
nistan is the plateau of Bamain, 1500 feet in elevation. 
More to the south is the high plain of Candahar, being 
3500 feet, and the City of Candahar, 3264 feet above the 
sea. The plateau of Kweltah west of the Bolan Pass is 
5220 feet. Still farther to the south is the great plain of 
Beloochistan, tOOO feet, with the City of Kelat, 5418 feet 
above the sea. 

In the central part of the eastern Persian plateau in 
ancient Gedrosia, Drangiana, and Parthia, and Lake Zareh, 
the depression is the lowest. At Lake Zareh the eleva- 
tion is 2100 feet; at Herat, more to the north, 2628 feet. 
In West Persia, on the meridian of the Caspian Sea, it 
rises higher; on the northern edge at Teheran it is 
3672 feet; at Schabred, southeast of Astrabad, it is 4000 
feet; at Kasbin, west of Teheran, it is 4000 feet; and at 
Samegon, 5700 feet. The lowest depression at Com and 
Kashan is not 2000 feet above the sea. Toward the north- 
west Persia thrusts up a short arm into the adjoining ter- 
ritory of Armenia. This is the highland of Ayerbaijan, 
Zoroaster's "Land of Fire." This connecting plateau of 

11 



82 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

TOGO feet elevation belongs to the first class. To the west 
of this the plateau of Armenia extends in varying range 
of elevation, from that of Lake Yan, 5124 feet, to the 
plain of the Aras, (the ancient Araxes,) on which the 
double cone of Ararat rises to a height of 14,656 feet. 
But the table-land at the northern base of Ararat, the site 
of Erdschmiazin, is only 2860 feet high, Erivan a little 
higher, and Erdzeroune, on the plateau of the Taurus, the 
plain of the Upper Euphrates, 5t30 feet. 

The plateaus of Asia Minor embrace wide plains ex- 
tending through the whole of the country, at an elevation 
toward the east, in ancient Lycaonia and Cappadocia, of 
3000 feet, and sinking toward the west to 2000 feet. 

To the plateaus of Armenia and Lycaonia, Strabo, 
whose home was there, and who carefully studied them, 
gave the expressive name of 6po-idca, i.e. mountain plains, 
a term which corresponds remarkably with our word pla- 
teau, but which, as Humboldt has remarked, was not of 
much use among the ancients. Strabo, however, directed 
attention also to the Oropedia of Sicily and India 

In India, Deccan displays similar formations, which rise 
gradually from south to north in Mysore, in Poonah of the 
Mahrattas, and in the table-land of Yindhya and Malwah, 
to 2000, 3000, and even 4000 feet. Deccan enjoys an admi- 
rable climate and the richest abundance of all natural pro- 
ductions. China too must have plateaus, for the Chinese 
word youen indicates very clearly a large elevated plain. 

In Arabia the plateaus of the second class are largely 
found, and their height ascends from noi'th to south, in- 
stead of from south to north as in Deccan. The Syrian 
Hauran is 2000 feet high, the plateau of Damascus 2200 
feet, the plateau of Taif, above Mecca, 3000 feet, the plateau 
of Sapaa, in Southern Arabia, 4000 feet. 



PLATEAUS OF THE SECOND CLASS. 83 

In North Africa that portion of the great Sahara which 
has heretofore been considered a low plain, lying between 
Tripoli and Lake Tchad, has been ascertained by the 
German explorers, Overweg and Vogel, to be a table-land 
of the second class, ranging in elevation from 1000 to 2000 
feet. It begins at the Chorean plateau (2000 feet) in the 
south of Tripoli, and sinks to an elevation of 800 feet in 
the neighborhood of Lake Tchad. The average altitude 
is about 1500 feet. This moderate elevation of Sahara 
corresponds with the equally high plateau of Cyrenaica, 
2000 feet. 

The Atlas plateau, in the northwest of Africa, rises to a 
greater height — 2000 to 3000 feet; the upper course of the 
Draa, near the Sahara, being 3000 feet ; the high, broad 
table-land on which Timbuctoo lies, according to Renon's 
measurement, is 1500 to 1800 feet above the sea. 

In south Africa the low, or rather the moderate plateau, 
which borders the district of the Bechuanas on the north, 
rises, as it advances toward the lower rim of Africa, at Cape 
Colony, to an altitude of 3000 feet. 

America has many plateaus of the second range of ele- 
vation, but her highlands of the first class are so impos- 
ing in extent, as well as in elevation, that they have been 
more carefully observed than the table-lands of the second 
class. 

Along the eastern slope of the Andes, on the same 
parallel witli the great plains of the Orinoco, the Ama- 
zon, and the La Plata, these plateaus extend, touching the 
base of the mountains, and appearing rather as terraces, 
or vast plains of transition, from the highlands to the 
lowlands, than as independent forms. Where Alexander 
von Humboldt measured them, west of the low plains of 
the Amazon, he found their height, measured from the 



84 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

sea, to range from 1050 to 1200 feet; he describes them 
as having the appearance of vast plains, and as differing 
from the lowlands of the Amazon only in their greater 
elevation; their slope toward the narrowing of the Pongo 
de Mauseriche being too slight to be appreciable. 

Between the threefold forks of the Northern Andes, 
Humboldt ascertained the heights of ten plateaus, extend- 
ing as far as the plains of Orinoco, and called by the various 
names, according to their elevation — Tierras templadas, 
or temperate districts, Tierras calientas, or warm districts, 
and Tierras fi'ias, or cold districts — varying in height from 
1800 to 6600 feet, the highest belonging clearly to the first 
class of plateaus. 

The mountains of Brazil are interspersed among pla- 
teaus of the second class. The Brazilian mountains are 
not true ranges, but lie in groups, their height varying 
from 2700 to 5*700 feet, and between them are the vast 
elevated plains, called Campas, which are true plateaus of 
the second class. 

The southern point of South America, south of the 
Kio Negro, as far as the Straits of Magellan, known as 
the plateau of Patagonia, is a true table-land of from 1200 
to 1400 feet in height. It is composed of ragged strata 
of porphyry or of vast lava-masses, and has been explored 
by Captain Fitz Roy, in 183T, from the mouth of the 
Santa Cruz River to the snovz-capped Andes in the west. 
The plateau diminishes gradually in elevation from west 
to east, till it touches the sea line. 

In North America the broad plateau extending through 
Northern Texas and the Indian Territory, and lying on 
both sides of the Arkansas River, increases in elevation 
gradually from St. Louis, on the Mississippi, less than 600 
feet above the sea, to Santa Fe, on the upper course of the 



PLATEAUS OP THE SECOND CLASS. 85 

Rio Bravo, 7000 feet above the sea. It ascends so slightly 
that the rise is imperceptible to the eye, the broad plains 
there taking the name of prairies. St. Louis is 420 feet 
in absolute elevation ; the eastern Arkansas plateau 1500 
to 3000 feet; the high western Arkansas table-land from 
3000 to 7000 feet, where, at the point of greatest altitude, 
lies the City of Santa Fe, in the Territory of New Mexico, 
7047 feet above the sea. This broad, sloping tract reaches 
out to a great extent at the north, crossing the Missouri, 
and embracing the colossal North American lakes. Lake 
Huron and Lake Michigan, about 578 feet deep, and Lake 
Superior, 627 feet deep, lie in vast hollows in that great 
continuous plateau, which extends into the British Pos- 
sessions, rises again to 800 or 1000 feet in elevation, and 
is rocky and craggy, yet not enough so as to take the 
name of a mountain chain, but simply to form a clearly- 
marked water-shed, which Tremont and Nicollet have 
measured. 

In Australia and Europe plateaus of the second grade 
of elevation are not wanting. In Australia, however, they 
are limited to the triangular district in the southeast, 
which has become the place of settlement for the chief 
English colonies, and which, bearing the name of King's 
Table-land, rises to a height of 2500 feet, and occupies 
the largest area of all the Australian table-lands. 

In Europe this physical' feature is displayed most dis- 
tinctly in the Spanish plateaus, which occupy by far the 
largest proportion of the entire peninsula. Madrid lies 
on one of these plateaus, at a height of 2100 feet, five 
times as high as Paris, on the Seine,. and as high as Inns- 
pruck, in the very heart of the Tyrol; Toledo, in the val- 
ley of the Tagus, is 1734 feet above the sea. The average 
elevation of New Castile, the central part of Spain, is 
H 



86 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

2000 feet. Old Castile, which borders it on the north, 
separated from it by the Guadarrama ridge, is about a 
thousand feet higher. Burgos, in the center, is 2700 feet, 
above the sea; Segovia, to the south, 3100 feet. The 
average elevation of Old Castile is 3000 feet. 

Then coraes in natural order the Bavarian plateau, in 
southern Germany, ranging from 1500 to 1600 feet high, 
a b.i'oad table-land, on which lie Munich and Augsburg. 
It extends along the course of the Danube from west to 
east, from Lower Switzerland to Ratisbon. 

According to the mean measurements of Humboldt, the 
lower plateau of Auvergne, in southern France, is 1040 
feet in elevation; still less in altitude (840 feet) is the 
plateau of Burgundy and Lothringia, between the Yosges 
and the Ardennes. Limousin, Aveyron, la Forez, Monts, 
and Cote d'Or are plateaus. 

The plateau of Lothringia, whose mean elvevation is 
648 feet, lies between the Rhine and the Moselle. The 
plateau of Luxemburg extends northward to the Eifel, 
where Prum lies, and to the Ardennes, where Malmedy, 
Eupen, Namur, Liege, and Aix-la-Chapelle lie. 

In Middle Germany, a series of plateaus of the second 
grade begins in Upper Hesse, and extends eastward, 
crossed by mountains and valleys, traversing Upper 
Silesia and Galicia, and running along the northern side 
of the Carpathian Mountains to Podolia, on the Dnieper, 
thus embracing a strip extending through the larger part 
of central Europe. 

A line of plateaus begins still farther to the north, at the 
low hills of Jutland, crossing Holstein, Mecklenberg, the 
whole southern edge of Pomerania, and extending to 
Lithuania and the Yaldai Hills. It is characterized by 
a band of inland lakes, whose basins it incloses, and is 



PLATEAUS OF THE SECOND CLASS. 87 

crossed by the valleys of tlie Oder, Vistula, Niemen, and 
Duna. It has been called the Pomerania lake country. 
In the hollows where the lakes lie, (whose surfaces are, 
at the highest, not more than 300 feet above the sea,) and 
yet more in the depressions, where rivers break through, 
the level descends to as low a point as that of the great 
plain of Central Europe ; but at other places it rises to 
an elevation as high as 500 feet, and so touches upon the 
limits of plateaus of the second range. Many parts of 
this broad upland may possibly be formed of shifting 
sand dunes which have been gradually piled up along the 
sea line. The plateau reaches its highest point at the 
eastern end, in the Valdai Hills, where it averages 1000 
feet in elevation. The highest point is 1100 feet. East 
of the Volga, which rises at the eastern side of these hills, 
the plateau falls off" by imperceptible steps, till it is lost in 
the great Russian plain. 

In the peninsulas of Southern Europe, as in the Morea, 
(2000 feet,) and in the Crimea, (800 to 1200 feet,) the 
plateau again appears in not insignificant proportions. 

The lower range of plateaus, it will be seen, is far more 
frequently met with through all parts of the earth than the 
higher, yet both combined occupy a larger share of the 
surface of the globe. We can designate them as sharply 
defined and broadly massive elevations, in contradistinction 
to the long, narrow, and broken masses which have received 
the name of mountain chains. The latter have too often 
been confounded with the former and have received from 
geographers a treatment disproportionately full in relation 
to their claims. The plateau has been until recently an 
almost forgotten geographical element. Humboldt re- 
stored it to its rightful place ; by many hundreds of meas- 
urements he has accurately settled its form, its effect on 



88 . COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

climate, on isothermal lines, on agriculture, on the physical 
and moral life of nations, and even on the course of human 
history. 

In closing this attempt at a general consideration of 
plateaus, I must confirm the reproach which Humboldt has 
cast upon most geographers of this day for their abuse of 
the word plateau. And I must at the same time admit 
that it is justly due to some parts of my own "Erdkunde," 
where I have considered the plateau systems of Central 
Asia and Africa, When I wrote the pages of that work, 
thirty and more years ago, there were no scientific meas- 
urements then made of those regions, and the general 
ignorance led to a premature generalization, in which I 
used the ascertained features of the New World as probably 
in analogy with the unexplored center of the Old World. 
This use of really untrue analogies was carried by others 
to great lengths, and choratographers went so far as to 
depict the country according to the hypothesis of those 
who had written at first hand, and after using all the lights 
then existing, but who had never supposed that what they 
had indicated in general terms, would be afterward made 
so definite and real to the public eye. Those untrue state- 
ments of my own, I must leave however just as they are, 
and rejoice that the great advance of science has led to the 
accurate knowledge of the great plateaus of which the 
civilized world then knew but little. One word more : I 
set the lower limit of plateaus of the second grade at 500 
feet, lower therefore than the great master in Physical 
Geography set his. 

"Elevations of the soil," says Humboldt, "which do 
not display a marked difference in climate and vegetation 
from the country around them, are not rightly called pla- 
teaus." His meaning is, that the name does not relate to 



MOUNTAINS AND MOUNTAIN LANDS. , 89 

absolute height measiired from the sea, but harmonious 
climatic relations existing between contiguous districts, one 
of which is more elevated than the other. Highland and 
lowland are therefore to him woi'ds of unfixed meaning, 
if they do not stand in the contrast of height, climate, re- 
lief, and rates of temperature. Humboldt therefore did 
not consider the depression of Central Asia, at the Tarin- 
gol, as a plateau; and table-lands from 200 to 1200 feet 
in absolute elevation, i.e. from the sea level, are passed 
over by him as not worthy of the same name which he 
applied to the plains 6000 to 10,000 feet above the sea. 

Dealing as I do with the elementary features and the 
physical contrasts of countries which for the most part are 
now thoroughly explored, I prefer, for the purpose of eluci- 
dating the subject of Physical Geography, to consider the 
plateau as beginning at 500 feet above the level of the sea. 
By comparing the plateaus of both hemispheres it is not 
difficult to deal with a variety of features, and to make a 
number of discriminations which, without an absolute 
standard, it would be impossible to make. 

We pass to the consideration of the much more varied 
and more imposing characteristics of mountains. 

Mountains and Mountain Lands. 

Mountain lands cannot, in the strict use of language, be 
compared with plateaus, except in way of contrast, because 
they are not uniform, broad, and sharply defined tracts, 
but extend in a linear direction, having as their chief feat- 
ure the longitudinal axis of the mountain chain. Groups 
of mountain ridges may be separated from each other, or 
may be united in any coherent way which does not make 
them continuous, and yet, despite the want of continuity, 
form a perfect whole. 

H* 12 



90 COMPARATIVE. GEOGRAPHY. 

Mountains, with tlieir fissures, chasms, abysses, valleys, 
ravines, clefts, precipices, — in a word, their varied diversi- 
ties of feature, broken through in every direction, the 
whole chain rent into fragments by these transverse breaks, 
are in direct contrast with plateaus. They have quite 
often a common range of elevation, which, measured from 
the sea level, is not unfrequently much greater than the 
districts lying at their base. Yet this relation is only in- 
cidental, it is not essential. There is no necessary con- 
nection between the height of the outlying plateau and 
the height of the mountain range. In Switzerland the 
mountains rise to the altitude of 13,000 or 14,000 feet ; the 
country at the foot of the Alps is but 1000 to 2000 feet 
above the sea. Here the distance between the summit 
and the plateau at the base suggests no relation between 
them. 

The distinctive characteristic of a mountain land is the 
height of isolated groups. Great differences of elevation 
within small distances characterize mountain regions ; 
small differences within great distances characterize pla- 
teaus. The plateau depends upon uniform evenness of 
surface, or an approximation to it, over a large extent of 
territory. The mountain range is the exact opposite, the 
development of all kinds of extremes within a limited 
space, and the consequent individualization of the locality 
where it stands. Mountain lands cannot therefore be 
identified with the type of the highland and the plateau. 
The mountain chain has a character of its own, whether 
existing in unbroken unity, or subdivided into subordinate 
ranges, ridges, and spurs, and whether the summits are 
conical or sharply pointed, — whether also of moderate, 
medium, or loftiest elevation. 

And high as mountains rise, their height is equivalenced 



MOUNTAINS AND MOUNTAIN LANDS. 91 

by the depth of the depressions which form their valleys ; 
the higher the mountain, the deeper the abyss which 
cleaves to the base. The immensely elevated peaks 
of the loftiest chains-find their correspondence in the nar 
row ravines and the mountain lakes at the foot; the pre- 
cipitous summits of the great American chain have their 
barrancos in the Andes and their canons in the Rocky 
Mountains. The valleys are in natural contrast with the 
summits. They have just as little of the uniformity of 
lowland plains as the mountain tops have of the uniformity 
of elevated table-lands. They are infinite in variety, highly 
individualized, and always adapt themselves to the char- 
acteristics of the chain which conditions them. The mount- 
ain, too, has no uniformity in its character; it embraces 
within the smallest compass the production of all climes, 
and unites the characteristics of both highland and lowland. 
Mountain regions have therefore had a great influence in 
history and in the development of humanity, even greater 
than the more monotonous plateaus, which in general 
harbor nomadic races and give little encouragement to 
permanently settled people. For this reason the geogra- 
pher cannot, like the geologist, classify high table-lands 
and mountains together; he cannot draw the same infer- 
ences from the plateau as from the mountain range ; to 
the geographer the plateau is not a lower type of mountain, 
but the two, in their relations to man and to history, sug- 
gest entirely different results and condition entirely different 
processes. 

And yet it must be confessed that mountains do stand 
in intimate connection with plateaus of both classes, and 
that the transitions from the one form to the other are 
well worthy of study. Yet the present lack of correct meas- 
urements has made this little understood. 



92 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

It is not the element of height alone which gives mount- 
ains their significance. There are many other features, 
which are little studied, jet of real import. ]t is, however, 
not a matter of indifference whether a chain thrusts up its 
peaks 1000, 5000, 10,000, or 20,000 feet, and the height 
has been made and will continue to be made a subject of 
careful investigation. In reference to height, we distinguish 
what, in a general sense, we call mountains,* into hills, 
mounts, and mountains of various degrees of magnitude. 
Yet the height of the highest range, in comparison with 
the diameter of the earth, is insignificant, only about yJ^^j, 
and the combined mass of mountains are of no more ac- 
count in comparing them with the entire mass of the globe, 
than the roughnesses on the rind of an apple, or perhaps 
more exactly still, than those on the shell of an egg. The 
combined mountain systems in the world would not suffice, 
if transferred to the North and South Pole, to fill out the 
earth to such an extent that the polar and equatorial 
diameters would be equal. 

In following out his profound scientific investigations, 
Alexander von Humboldt, in order to ascertain the center 
of the earth's gravity, taking into account the existing 
elevations above the ocean level, was led to the conclusion 
that too great importance was formerly assigned to mount- 
ains in their relations not to the course of history, but to 
the earth as subject to mathematical laws. Very careful 
observations revealed the fact to him that all the mount- 
ains of France, if reduced to a level and spread out, would 
raise the grade of the whole country to a height not more 



* The English does not convey adequately, certainly as idiomatic 
English, the fullness of the German classes, Berge, Vorberge, 
Hochgeberge, Alpen, and Riesenberge. 



MOUNTAINS AND MOUNTAIN LANDS. 93 

than 816 feet above the sea line. All the mountains oi 
Europe, distributed in like manner, would raise the level 
to only about 630 feet. In Asia the same process would 
make the vast plain only 1080 feet high, in North America 
T02 feet, in South America only 1062 feet; while the 
mountains of the entire globe would raise the level to only 
947 feet above the level of the sea. So insignificaut are 
the combined mountain systems of the earth in respect to 
size, in comparison with the immense body on which they 
stand, though their importance is great when we regard 
their influence on the localities where they are found. 
Yet in this last regard, mountains deserve careful study, 
for they not only exercise and have exercised a great influ- 
ence over nature and man, but they serve as our best key 
to open to our view the internal structure of the earth. 

Some mountains, though of great height and broad base, 
like Etna, Vesuvius, Teneriffe, and many volcanoes, be- 
long to no true mountain system ; and even when they 
lie near together, and yet have no inner principle of unity, 
they are not spoken of as a chain or a range : they make 
merely a mountainous district. It is the repetition of the 
common type and the existence of a continuous valley 
which gives a right to use the names chain and range. 

The linear extent and height of mountain ranges vary 
very much ; no definite limits to these can be assigned. 
Yet there are few chains which are less than 25 miles 
long and 1500 feet high. Other features are necessary in 
order to determine the strict application of the word chain 
or range ; one is a ridge-like or comb-like aspect ; (that 
it should be a water-shed is not essential, although very 
common ;) another feature is that the rock composing it 
should be of the same geological formation. Sand 
dunes, although occurring in regular and ridge-like uni- 



94 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

formi'ty, like those in Holland, and looking from a distance 
like a mountain chain, are not to be reckoned as momitain 
chains, though like the tells on the Syrian steppes and 
dunes in the Netherlands and along the Baltic coast, they 
sometimes rise to the height of a thousand feet. In South 
Grermany and in the neighborhood of lofty mountains, such 
elevations are called mere hills ; at the north foot of the 
Alps, yet greater heights are almost always called level 
land. In judging of the fitness with which the word 
mountain is used, it must always be remembered whether 
he who employs it dwells among the Himalayas or on the 
lowlands of eastern Europe; and in order to give any 
fixedness to the use of the word, it is necessary to take 
into account other physical characteristics besides height. 
By common usage, however, the Alps have become the 
standard of comparison for all the mountains of the world, 
mainly because, besides having their imposing height, they 
are found in the middle of the temperate zone ; they are 
the most convenient to study of any great system on the 
globe. In respect to height, we divide these into four 
grades : the lowest from 2000 to 5000 feet above the sea; 
the next from 5000 to 8000 ; the next from 8000 to 10,000 ; 
and the highest from 10,000 on to the height of Mont 
Blanc. 

Another standard might be found in the colossal Him- 
alaya chain of Asia, and the Cordilleras of both Ameri- 
cas, which could easily be brought into unison with the 
Alpine chain of Switzerland. 

The linear direction of a mountain chain, the axis of ele- 
vation as we might say, (so sharply hinted at in the very 
word mountain-chain,) brings out relations which vary 
not only according to the longitudinal direction itself, but 
to the lateral extent, the number of mountains, the situa- 



MOUNTAINS AND MOUNTAIN LANDS. 95 

tion, and the ramification of the chain. If the direction be 
a straight one, we can rightly speak of an axis of elevation. 
According to Humboldt's measurements, this axis in the 
Pyrenees is 230 miles in length ; in the Alps, from Mont 
Blanc to the Hungarian frontier, 51 5 miles ; the Ural Moun- 
tains, 550 to 2042 miles ; the Scandinavian Mountains, 1100 
miles; the Altai Mountains, 9900 miles; the Kuenlun, 
1600 miles; the Thian-Shan, in Inner China, 1^00 to 2150 
miles; the Himalayas, 1600 miles; the Yablonoi Chrabet, 
550 miles; the Aldan, 400 miles; the Ghauts, 160 miles; 
the Andes of South America, 4400 miles; and the whole 
Cordillera of North America, 9200 miles. There is often 
much doubt about the true beginning and ending of a 
mountain chain, and judgments differ according as they 
rest on the fact of elevation or on the geological traces 
of upheaval where they begin to be manifest. Geogra- 
phers are not agreed, for example, whether the Ural Moun- 
tains continue as far north as Nova Zembla, and whether 
one or two chains in America are to be spoken of as trav- 
ersing the plateau of Mexico. 

If there are parallel ranges, it is correct to speak of a 
transverse axis, running at right angles with the main axis. 
There is, it is apparent, a marked difference between simple 
chains and the accumulated parallel chains, where breadth 
is a prominent element, as in the Yosges, the Black Forest 
Mountains, the Fichtel range, the Hartz, the Ardennes. 
The parallel rows form a mountain system. Yet all greal 
chains are made up of smaller ones, of groups at least, and 
so are mountain systems. Often the grouping is seem- 
ingly irregular, a lawless aggregation, but only because 
our knowledge is incomplete, and the law of arrangement 
concealed from us. This law is traced in the very geo- 
logical qualities of the chain, not in the later form. The 



96 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

outer form is often very deceptive, the very convulsions 
which indicate the surer signs having served to obliterate 
what we should suppose the most prominent marks. The 
present of mountains must often be studied in the light of 
their past. Orography must be interpreted by geology. 
But the geological surveys of the earth are as yet very 
imperfect; the outer form has often to be accepted as the 
only guide. Orography and geology are two sciences which 
now go on hand in hand. 

In the simple mountain chain it is easy to discriminate 
between the parts which make it up ; the base is easily 
ascertainable and the ascent to the comb-like ridge is 
readily traced ; the eye does not fail to see the relation be- 
tween the special prominent heights and the chain from 
which they rise, and to ti"ace the manner in which spurs 
and outlying mountains are connected with the main chain. 
Small isolated collections of mountains are especially valu- 
able as elementary studies, for they always have a unity 
of their own. And all the greater and well-known chains 
are made up of smaller, simple chains, whose connection 
and mutual relations are, however, sometimes exceedingly 
difficult to trace. But the character of the whole is not 
sometimes ascertainable with this preliminary knowledge 
of the parts. 

The true base of a mountain chain, the line of periphery, 
in consequence of the general unevenness of the adjacent 
country, must be ascertained by very exact measurements 
with the level. The geologist does not begin with this 
step, he strikes deeper, and seeks the place where the 
structure diverges from that of the more level land lying 
near; and, in the search after the basis of structure, he 
discovers the unity of the range from the foot to the sum- 
mit. The whole geological district which has been up- 



MOUNTAINS AND MOUNTAIN LANDS. 9t 

heaved into mountains, Leopold von Biicli found to be 
generally ellipsoidal in form, the longer axis being far 
more prominent than the shorter one. The axis of most 
mountain chains is, then, the longer axis of an ellipsoid. 
The Swiss Alps display about a dozen such ellipsoids, of 
different characteristics, and arranged according to no per- 
ceptible law of harmony. Each is developed from its own 
base, as the trunk of a tree grows out of its root. These 
separate bases lie contiguously, but the peaks which shoot 
up are widely sundered. The forms of the mountain 
groups resulting from this are, of course, various. Some 
of them I will briefly characterize. 

1. The longer axes of the subordinate chains rhay run 
in parallels, as in one portion of the Swiss Alps, the Jura, 
the Ural Mountains, the Mexican Cordilleras, and the 
Himalayas. 

2. The chains may diverge or converge. The Alps di- 
verge at the east, and the forks run northeast and southeast 
respectively ; the Rocky Mountains, toward the Arctic re- 
gions, divide into from five to seven diverging chains. Con- 
verging ranges may come together at varying angles, and 
these can mass themselves into confused mountain knots, 
the summits of which soar to amazing heights, as the 
West and Middle Alps do around Mont Blanc. Alex- 
ander von Humboldt distinguishes five of these mountain 
knots in the Andes, Porco, Cuzco, Pasco, Assuay, and Los 
Pastes, whose construction, carefully studied, he consid- 
ered, gives the key to the structure of the whole chain. 
Side chains often display this knotted form, as in Upper 
Peru around Lake Titicaca, the three branches of. the 
Ural, at the Irmel Tau, the Himalaya, Kuenlun, and Hin- 
doo Koosh chains, in upper Afghanistan, and the ranges 
of Swiss Alps, which converge around St. Gothard. Yet 

I 13 



98 COMPAEATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

the convolutions which these mountain chains make at 
their point of convergence are never regular, never mathe- 
matically exact, but to be measured in sections, and the 
traces of a linear direction to be carefully sought with the 
compass. The whole has, to the eye, a labyrinthine ap- 
pearance, and the law of structure is only ascertained, with 
exactness, by the geological features, the direction of the 
strata, and the like. The geographer must call in the 
geologist to help him solve his problems. * 

3. If from some high central point the mountain ranges 
radiate in the form of a star, they form a new variety of 
system called, for convenience, by the name "star-shaped." 
In volcanic mountains this configuration is common, as in 
Mont d'Or and in Auvergne. The southwestern Alps, 
known sometimes as the Sea Alps, the Ural at the Arctic 
Ocean, the Quito range of the Andes, are types of this 
form. 

4. The ring-shaped system is in direct contrast with the 
last. It is found where mountain chains are arranged in 
a circle, inclosing a plateau of larger or smaller extent. 
There are two marked examples of this form in Europe : 
Bohemia and Transylvania. The ring of mountains 
around the former is made up of a number of ranges, 
which dovetail together at the ends, making a unit, but 
only a rude circle, speaking with mathematical exactness. 
The inclosed basin is only relatively a lowland ; it is rigid 
with hills and low mountains, yet of such little importance, 

* Not inappropriately lias geology been called the Anatomy of 
mountain ranges. The more mountains are studied geologically, 
the more safe become the conclusions that are drawn from them. 
The smaller and more scattered ridges of central Europe have be- 
come the chief quarries for geological discovery, because of the 
rich variety which they afford to the student, and also because of 
their accessibility. 



MOUNTAINS AND MOUNTAIN LANDS. 99 

iu comparison with the rim of peaks, that the common 
name, the "Bohemian Kettle," has begun to have an ac- 
credited significance, and is stronger than the more loosely- 
used word Basin. Transylvania, too, partakes of similar 
characteristics. Its border consists of a number of minor 
ranges, of varying heights, up to 1800 feet ; and the central 
hollow, which is much more strongly marked by hilly land 
than Bohemia, lies 2200 feet above the Adriatic. The ring- 
shaped system is one of the rarest met of all. They are, 
however, observed in abundance on the moon. 

5. Just as rare is the form where ranges intersect in the 
form of a cross, those running, for example, from north to 
south, meeting those running east and west. As an in- 
stance of this, Humboldt cites the confluence of the Hima- 
laya, the Kuenlun, the Hindoo Koosh, and the Belor or 
Belurtagh Mountains. The belt between 35° and 40° 
N. lat. is remarkable for its gridiron-shaped mountain 
system, the points of conjunction being marked by knots 
of peaks of colossal height. The most remarkable one of 
these is the lofty Pamir Pass, between 31° 30' and 40° 5' 
N. lat, and 18,000 feet high, known, historically, from the 
sixth century, and described by Marco Polo, as well as by 
the ancient Greek historians. The Persians dwelling in 
the neighborhood term it the Roof of the World. Else- 
where the same feature is observable, though on a scale of 
less magnitude. So in the Altai range at Lake Yetzkoi, 
in the western Swiss Alps, and in the porphyritic chain 
of Room-Elee, known to the ancients as Rhodope, and 
now as the Despoto Dagh. This gridiron-shape of some 
mountain systems seems to be the result of upheavals at 
different times, which necessarily occasions the most broken 
configuration at the point where a chain of more recent 
formation has been projected through one of older date. 



100 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

The varying relations of length, breadth, direction, con- 
nection, and severance of mountain ranges give great 
diversity to them, and impart to every system a character 
of its own. To the features just indicated must be added 
vertical or precipitous descents, for the influences which 
they exert upon the possibility of man's constructing 
mountain roads, are very great. The extent of these 
sudden depressions, or, more exactly, the relation which 
the distance from the base to the pass bears to the dis- 
tance from the base to the summit, gives a key to the uses 
of certain mountains as adjuncts of civilization, and shows 
how some ranges rather than others may become the abode 
of men, and produce marked effects on human culture and 
the world's history. 

I have before alluded to the comb-like structure of most 
mountain chains. The resemblance is more striking than 
may appear ; for not only do the peaks correspond in gen- 
eral uniformity of height with the teeth of the comb, but 
the equally uniform height of the passes from the base 
corresponds with the uniform thickness of the solid part 
of the comb. The relation, however, of the distance from 
the base to the passes, to the distance from the base to the 
peaks, is widely various. Humboldt has estimated it in a 
few leading chains as follows : — 

Himalayag. Andes. 

Height, of chain, 25,000 ft. Chimborazo, 21,000 ft. 

" pass, 15,000" Height of pass, 10,000 " 

" base, 1000 "(Delhi.) Base, (Sea.) 

Alps. Pyrenees. 

Mont Blanc, 14,500 ft. Maladetta, 10,722 ft. 

Height of pass, 7200" Height of pass, 8000" 

" base, 1200 " " base, (Sea.) 

In the Alps and Caucasus the relation of the height of 



MOUNTAINS AND MOUNTAIN LANDS. 101 

the pass to the height of the chain is as 1 to 2 ; in the 
Himalaya, Quito Cordillera, and Alleghany Mountains, as 
1 to 1-8 ; in the Pyrenees and Cordillera of Bolivia, as 1 
to 1-5. In the Alps, therefore, where the pass is only 
half as elevated as the chain, the communication is the 
most direct, and the least barrier is put to the purposes 
of man, — a fact of great import in relation to human cul- 
ture. The Pyrenees are in direct contrast in this respect, 
the most unapproachable, the most sundering of mountains. 
The position of mountain chains is a matter of the first 
importance in relation to the welfare of man, and the 
solution of many of the most important problems in his- 
tory. Whether interior ranges like the Ural and the 
Atlas, or ranges connecting two seas like the Caucasus, 
or those like the Mexican Sierras, lying between two 
oceans, are most open to human approach and use, is a 
question which we will not here stop to consider ; but it 
may be said that, whether situated in the relations just in- 
dicated, or whether they are meridianal ranges like the Ural, 
the Scandinavian chain, the Alleghanies, or the great Cor- 
dillera of both Americas, which extends from the tropical 
world to both polar zones ; or whether they run in the 
same direction with the parallels of latitude, turning one 
side to the colder north, and another side to the sunnier 
south ; or whether they assume a diagonal direction like 
the Swiss Alps, from southwest to northeast, or like the 
Caucasus, from northwest to southeast, is a matter of the 
first importance to ascertain. Of not less consequence is 
it to discover whether the chain is" the edge or rim of a 
plateau, and can have, therefore, only a one-sided develop- 
ment, like the Himalayas toward the south, or the Anti- 
Taurus toward the north, because the existence of a pla- 
teau on the reverse side dwarfs the slant distance, and 
I* 



102 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

gives but a fractional part of what, without the plateau, 
would be open and clear. 

As plateaus usually display this edge on both sides, the 
border has been aptly compared to a double ledge or rim, 
between the two sides of which the table-land lies, often 
tolerably high above the sea level. If these rims, like 
mountains, are not contiguous to the plateau ; if they are 
separated from it by a valley of greater or less width and 
depth, running parallel with the edge, they form what 
Humboldt has called natural circumvallations. Of such 
the Altai range, on the north side of the Asiatic central 
plateau, is an example. The hollow between the range 
and the plateau just mentioned is partly filled with inland 
seas. The Caucasus may, in like manner, be regarded as 
the circumvallation of the American plateau, separate 
from it by the Koor and the Aras (ancient Araxes) rims. 
Yet in the Caucasus another modification occurs — a par- 
tial linking of the plateau with the range at the west ex- 
tremity, by the connecting chain of the Moschic Mount- 
ains. In like manner the Pyrenees, in their eastern half, 
form a circumvallation around the north side of the Cas- 
tilian plateau, separated from it by the basin of the Ebro, 
and forming a perfect ring around Upper Castile and the 
elevated province of Biscay. 

In cases where a mountain chain rests upon a plateau, 
rising up in the very heart of it, its summits seem to be 
not high, although the basis, the true foot of the chain, 
may not be at the level of the plateau, but far lower, and 
such mountains may, therefore, be of great absolute height. 
The name superimposed mountains has been given to them. 
Such are the Kuenlun and the Thian-Shan ranges of Cen- 
tral Asia, the Guadarrama chain between Old and New 
Castile, and the Rocky Mountains in North America. 



MOUNTAINS AND MOUNTAIN LANDS. 103 

These superimposed ranges often run near to and parallel 
with the rim or edge of the plateau, and seem to give it 
more completeness and breadth. 

The geologist employs the word "sutures" to designate 
such forms, because they serve to unite those parts of a 
plateau which are at different heights above the sea level. 
He regards the mountains as rising to fill enormous clefts 
which great convulsions have rent in the earth, and as 
passing up, while in their fluid state, to a height above 
the level of the plateau, and bridging over the abyss. In 
this way our mountains which rest on plateaus seem to 
have been formed, as indeed is indicated by their geologi- 
cal structure. 

The smaller plateaus display analogies kindred to those 
seen in the larger superimposed mountain ranges. The 
extinguished volcanic group of Auvergne rests upon the 
central plateau of southern France, which, according to 
Remond, has an average elevation of 1000 feet. The now 
silent volcanic group of the northern Rhine broke through 
the moderately elevated gray-wacke formation of that lo- 
cality, and is, therefore, a superimposed range. 

Mountain chains which diverge from plateaus and their 
serrated rims seem, nevertheless, to have some relation 
to them, even though they cannot be considered continua- 
tions of them. The Lebanon chain, for instance, which 
turns away at a right angle from the Taurus range, and 
runs southward through Syria and Palestine ; the Lutz- 
netskia and the Alatau Mountains, mineral ranges running 
from the Altai northward to Tomsk; the Yablonoi and 
the Stanovoi Chrabet ranges running to the northeast; 
the still unknown or little known range of Farther India, 
traversing the whole peninsula of Malacca, come under 
this head. 



104 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

Completely unlike the groups thus far considered, are 
the isolated mountain systems, with uniform slopes on all 
sides, and with a roof-like form, distinguishable to the 
base. The mountains of Europe are mostly of this class 
— the Ural, Carpathian, Scandinavian ranges, the Alps, 
Apennines, and, in part, the Pyrenees. They give rise to 
rivers, not on one side alone, as do the Himalayas and the 
Andes ; they are rich in resources of all kinds for the student 
and the economist, and thus make up in part for their com- 
paratively unimportant dimensions. Their double- sideness 
gives them a large influence on civilization, since rivers 
flow from them in all directions ; while from the Himalayas 
they only flow to the south, and from the Andes to the 
east. 

Plateaus and mountains, diff"erent as they are in appear- 
ance and characteristics, yet constitute, in their mutual ac- 
tion and reaction, and in their forms of transition from the 
one to the other, the highland system of the globe. Their 
relations are inexhaustible as Nature herself We cannot 
study them without profit; but we can never come to a 
perfect knowledge of them all. 

The Relations of Plateau Systems. 

Like mountain systems, plateaus are not to be estimated 
in respect to elevated and superficial area alone, but in re- 
spect to form and position as well. 

The American plateaus are elongated from north to 
south, but are of disproportionate breadth from east to 
west. The Asiatic plateaus, on the contrary, are not only 
of great length, but also of great breadth. The Spanish 
plateau, that of the Atlas system, and that of Asia Minor 
have their length and breadth nearly equal. 

The surface of plateaus is exceedingly varied. It some- 



RELATIONS OF PLATEAU SYSTEMS. 105 

times assumes the aspect of elevated plains, sometimes of 
rolling land, sometimes of horizontal strata of naked rock, 
as in Patagonia and the western Sahara. In one place it 
displays sand-hills, as in parts of the Gobi Desert; in 
others barren steppes, as in portions of Persia. Some- 
times we find a gradual ascent of minor plateaus or ter- 
races ; sometimes single mountains rising out of the pla- 
teaus, as does Demavend ; sometimes we find a chain of 
colossal peaks emerging from the heart of a plateau, like 
Thian-Shan and Bogdo-Oola. Sometimes there are pla- 
teaus broken up into crags and patches of level ground, 
like Persia ; sometimes plateaus with deep valleys or river 
basins, like the plateau of Yoorkistan and Gobi, including 
the River Tarim, and reaching its greatest depression at 
Lake Lop, or, like the plateau of Afghanistan, including 
the River Hirmend and Lake Zareh ; again, we have pla- 
teaus traversed by water-courses which forced their way in 
times of flood, and leave in the rainless seasons the traces 
of the former violence. Such are some of the less ele- 
vated plateaus of France and Bavaria. 

Especially important are the combinations and group- 
ings of plateaus, as well as their relation to adjacent low- 
lands. 

In Africa the plateau form embraces the larger southern 
half of the continent. Low plains are, on the contrary, 
the prevailing form in the north, broken, however, by the 
Sahara, and the high coast plateaus of the Atlas range, 
and of Barca. 

In Asia there is a vast central plateau with gradual de- 
clivities toward the east, toward Yoorkistan and Persia 
on the west, and toward Lakes Baikal and Zaisan on the 
north. On the south the descent is abrupt to the Indian 
lowlands. 

14 



106 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

lu Europe there are, for the most part, scattered and 
disconnected plateaus of small size and little elevation, 
often passing by an imperceptible gradation to the other 
forms. The Spanish plateau is, however, a marked ex- 
ception, and has the sharply-defined character of the 
northern African plateaus. , In eastern Europe the central 
situation of the isolated Valdai plateau, whose elevation 
is very moderate, but 840 to 1080 feet, is remarkable, and 
is of very great influence in determining the hydrographi- 
cal character of the great Russian lowlands. And in fact, 
^he hydrographical influence of both mountains and pla- 
teaus is* so great, that it is worthy of careful and special 
study. 

The combinating and grouping of plateaus in different 
continents give rise .to great contrasts, observable most dis- 
tinctly in Asia and -'America. 

Asia, with all its great internal depression from Cashgar 
to Lake Lop, yet displays such immense districts of pla- 
teaus, all ranges of elevation, low", moderate, and very 
great, that the very grandeur and extent of its colossal 
mountain chains are subordinate in comparison. Asia is 
the land pre-eminently of plateaus. 

America displays, not in its central but on its western 
coast, the greatest chain of mountains on the globe, flanked 
by plateaus of great eleyation, but of superficial area 
quite out of proportion to the length of the mountain 
chain, and to the extent of the lowlands of both the 
northern and the southern divisions. And while in 
Africa the regions of depression are in the north, and in 
Asia around the great central plateau system, in the Ame- 
ricas, both North and South, they are thrown into the 
eastern portion. 

Austraha, in perfect contrast again, is, with the excep- 



PRIMEVAL FORMATION OF PLATEAUS, ETC. 107 

tion of its southeastern corner, a vast tract of unbroken 
lowland. No diversity is possible there, no change in the 
condition of life, but a ceaseless uniformity of monotonous 
but prodigal gifts. 

Is not the imposing grandeur of these harmonious, pro- 
visional arrangements for the use of man calculated to fill 
the soul with admiring wonder, and to lead us to suspect, 
above all this display of cause and effect, above all .this 
working out of a manifestly preconceived plan, the exist- 
ence of a great and active Being, who has planned and 
executed it all with higher ends and a loftier purpose than 
to satisfy the mere earthly life of man ? " * . 

Primeval Formation of Plateaus and Mountains. 

To enter upon a discussion of the manner in which pla- 
teaus and mountains were formed, woltld make it neces- 
sary to resort to such judgments as we could draw from 
their external appearance and their internal structure. 
The rapid progress of geology does indeed afford us many 
probabilities thoroughly grounded. A few of these may 
have been briefly indicated in connection with some ele- 
vated regions, where the massiveness is striking, and 
where the axis of elevation is prolonged to a considerable 
extent. In such cases the influence exerted on the world 
is more evident than it could be elsewhere. 

Origin of Plateaus. 
Alexander von Humboldt has employed the term Intu- 
mescence, to indicate the manner in which plateaus have 
been upheaved. Plateaus appear as long, often wide, 
mostly level, sometimes rolling, sometimes hilly elevations, 
presenting an appearance as if the earth had swelled with 
confined gases, and with depressions here and there as if, 



108 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

in the casting of the molten mass within, a natural exter- 
nal subsidence had followed. They have, therefore, viewed 
in their internal structure, an unbroken wholeness, and are 
free from those vast fissures which characterize mountains, 
rending the earth for hundreds of feet down. The ut- 
most want of uniformity is seen in the gradual depressions 
which often harbor the large internal lakes found in great 
plateaus. Varied as they are in configuration, they always 
retain marks enough to indicate that they owe their up- 
heaval to steady, gentle, and not tumultuous forces within, 
exerted at the time of the primeval cooling of the earth's 
crust ; in contrast, therefore, with mountains, which were 
thrust up from beneath, through huge seams made by the 
bursting through of pent-up vapor and gases. These ele- 
vations of the earth's crust, whether in the foi'm of mount- 
ain or plateau, must correspond, in order that the sym- 
metry of the globe may be preserved, to the depressions 
found in lowlands and beneath the water of oceans and 
seas. 

It is observable that the great plateau upheaval of the 
Old "World has taken the shape of a belt, which runs in a 
northeasterly direction along its whole southeastern shore, 
crossing the equator at an angle of 45°, broken, however, 
at some places, but never so much as to destroy the coher- 
ence of the belt. The diagonal of the rhomboidal plateau 
of eastern Asia, passing due northeast through the table- 
land of Thibet, indicates the direction of the whole band 
of highlands. This band drops toward the south in uni- 
formly steep declivities ; while toward the north it falls 
away with gi'adual steps of transition, reaching at length 
the regions of the greatest depression — Libya, northern 
Arabia, the Caspian, Siberia, and, at last, the low regions 
around the north pole 



ORIGIN OP MOUNTAINS. 109 

In this belt or chaplet of plateaus lie tlie high table- 
lands of South and Northeast Africa, Abyssinia, South 
Arabia, Persia, Beloochistan, North Deccan, Afghanistan, 
Thibet, East Taugut, and eastern Gobi, in Mantchooria. 

Correspondent with this immense plateau belt, in the 
New World, is the great American chain, once a wholly 
volcanic, and though differing so much in structure, direc- 
tion, and hydrographical influence, yet giving the globe a 
wholeness, a unity in diversity, which is strikingly apparent. 

The Origin of Mountains. 
The linear regions of elevations of the earth's surface, 
as we may term them, in contradistinction to the plateaus 
which are characterized by breadth rather than by length, 
have been projected in the form of mountain chains, as 
has been already hinted, through huge fissures made by 
the rending of the earth's crust. The upheaval to fill the 
seam has, in some cases, been all made at once ; in others, 
in a succession of periods. The uniform agreement of all 
the geological strata or their diversity decides this point. 
Sometimes the rocky strata are laid bare and easily in- 
vestigated. Often, however, the observer is obliged to 
draw conclusions from a part to the whole. Yet in all 
cases the mountain, in contradistinction to the adjacent 
plateau, is the tract which has been thrust through the 
crusfc The frequent steep and lofty precipices show the 
immensity of the internal force required to lift the mount- 
ains from their places, while the lines of stratification indi- 
cate the direction of upheaval. The rifting of a seam in 
the earth's crust was the first step in the formation of 
mountains ; the filling up of the seam by liquid matter, 
t'he second step. The upheaval of Asia, from the Persian 
plateau to Gobi, in a line 60° N. E., seems to be con- 
K 



110 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

nected with the most ancient revolution which the earth's 
crust ever experienced. The mountains there are, there- 
fore, more modern in origin than the plateau on which 
they stand. The direction of the chain, in all cases, seems 
to have been dependent on the direction of the fissure in 
the earth's crust, which the mountain range afterward fills. 
The breaking through the crust necessarily occurred when 
the pressure beneath the surface was very great, or when a 
moderate pressure was exerted beneath a thin crust, where 
the resistance was slight. 

The latter case seems to have been prevalent in most 
plateau regions. Their own gradual upheaval probably 
thinned the surface, and made it more liable to fracture. 
This accounts for the fact that the greatest mountains of 
the globe are found contiguous to plateaus. And the 
broader the original seam in the crust was, the broader 
the mountain range which rose to fill it, either at a single 
upheaval, or in a series of convulsive throes projecting suc- 
cessive masses of molten matter from below. In the latter 
cases the strata thus formed lie on each other like the 
leaves of a book, their constitution changing according as 
the more advanced stages of melting in the vast internal 
caldron throw out more metamorphosed rocks. These 
later layers rose to a greater or less height on the sides 
of the partially-formed mountain, according to their spe- 
cific gravity, their more or less fluid state, and their ra- 
pidity of cooling, as we can now see by examining the 
layers in their present permanent condition. 

Thus far we can conjecture, with great security, taught 
by the manifestly wild and fierce convulsions which once 
threw up the mountains, since in them distortion is the 
rule and regularity of structure the exception, and also 
by the equally manifest quiet and sustained process of up- 



ORIGIN OP MOUNTAINS. Ill 

heaval, when the plateaus were formed ; their strata being 
in a state of regularity and unbroken repose. 

When the great vents produced by the outward pressure 
of internal volcanic forces occurred beneath the sea, they 
were filled up in the same manner as on the dry land, ex- 
cepting that the summits of the mountains emerge above 
the surface in the form of isolated islands, or when there 
was a chain or group of mountains upheaved, as an archi- 
pelago. When there was no rifting of the surface, and 
no forcing up of whole chains of peaks through a thinned 
crust, the fierce action of the internal heat appears to have 
necessitated the upheaval of solitary volcanoes here and 
there, in some cases even rows of them, to give vent to 
the pent-up steam and gases, and to convey away the 
molten tide within. When such volcanic series rose in 
parallel ranges, they lifted, or may have lifted up the whole 
district between them, as if upon their shoulders, and so 
formed the American type of plateaus, of less breadth and 
greater length than the Asiatic, and in height correspond- 
ing with the volcanic peaks which form their rim, and to 
which they are probably indebted for the form of their 
structure. 

It needs hardly to be added to what has been said 
above, that the general direction of existing mountain 
chains depends upon the direction of the primitive seams 
made in the earth's surface by internal forces. The Ural 
Mountains, the Scandinavian chain, the Alleghanies, the 
Ghauts, run on meredian lines; others more or less trans- 
versely. 

The various kinds of rock which have been thrown up in 
mountains enlighten us as to the process and results of the 
internal heat of the earth ; the successive formations di.«- 
play not only the various eruptions of molten matter, and 



112 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

its discliarge in new layers above what had been thrown 
out before, but reveal the relative age of the various for- 
mations. We have in a single chain sometimes a whole 
volume of history, marking off the epochs of upheaval with 
the most perfect legibility and exactness. Many crystal- 
lized rocks result evidently from the gradual process of 
cooling after the ancient exposure to the intense heat of 
the inner portions of the earth — granite, porphyry, gneiss, 
slates, and the so-called metamorphosed rocks. These 
used to be considered the oldest formations, but the up- 
heaval theory treats them as the latest formed. 

Most mountain chains have been uplifted to their pres- 
ent height by a succession of upheavals. To accomplish 
this has been labor of uncounted thousands of years. Only 
a very few — the main Carpathian range, for.instance — seem 
to have been upheaved at a single convulsion, and to have as- 
sumed their present appearance at once. Where there were 
incessant eruptions accompanied with flames, and masses 
of molten matter (lava) have been ejected from the crest 
or from single summits, these volcanoes and volcanic 
ranges have been the result. Elsewhere no such phe- 
nomena have been visible. Possibly, in such cases, the 
masses cooled so rapidly as to extinguish or fill up what 
may have been embryo craters, and the plutonic acclivities 
may have been repressed, leaving us the traces of primeval 
eruptions, but no vestiges of any dangerous forces remain- 
ing till now. Of mountains formed in this manner, may 
be mentioned the Puys de Dome, the Bo'hemian basaltic 
peaks, trachyte Transylvania Alps, the Katak Kaumene, 
("Burnt Tract,") of Asia Minor, and Hauran, Iceland, 
parts of the gi*eat American chain, parts of the Sunda 
chain, the South Sea Islands, and Bagdoola, and its range 
of extinct volcanoes in the Thian-Shan chain. 



ORIGIN OF MOUNTAINS. 113 

But other forces besides fire were competent to form 
mountains and plateaus, to spread layers of clay a'ud sand 
and various deposits at the bottom of the sea, afterward 
to harden into strata of rock. In contradistinction to plu- 
tonic formations, these have been called neptunic, because 
formed at the bottom of the sea. The oldest of the nep- 
tunic or stratified rocks have been upheaved by the sub- 
terranean forces, and now are found in the elevated 
plateaus or mountain ranges, still having, however, their 
unbroken irregularity of structure. Also, after the strati- 
fication has been complete, and plutonic acclivities have 
opened the seams in the earth of which I have already 
spoken, and molten masses have rushed up to fill them, 
fragments of the primitive stratified rocks have been 
caught up and raised, together with the molten masses, to 
the very summits of lofty mountains ; so that the geolo- 
gist finds fossils there more or less perfectly preserved, 
the stratified rocks which contain them surrounded by 
the plutonic rock upheaved from below the surface. Chalk 
layers full of mollusca and infusoria have been found by 
Humboldt and von Buch on the very summits of the 
Andes, and corresponding with those which have been 
discovered by Ehrenburg in the deposits at the bottom 
of the sea. 

Other older and more recent oceanic deposits are found 
in their primitive condition at the bottom of the sea, or in 
very low places oh' the land. In such localities the sur- 
face of the earth is composed of horizontal or slightly in- 
lined layers or strata, of secondary formation, and whose 
origin in deposits from water cannot be denied. These 
are the beds of chalk, clay, sand, marl, gypsum, and other 
common substances; and these strata again have been 
overlaid with more recent accumulations, the result of di- 
K* 15 



114 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

luvium or alluvium, continuing even up to the present 
time.* 

Lowlands. 

This variety of the earth's surface stands in the strongest 
contrast with mountain regions, or, in one word, with the 
highland form in all its modifications. The name lowland 
we apply to all those broad tracts which do not rise more 
than four hundred feet above the level of the sea. The 
absolute elevation is determined from a section drawn 
vertically from the superior surface to the plane of the 
sea. Every comparison by numbers of one lowland plain 
with its more elevated surroundings gives only a relative 
result, as for instance, in comparing the valleys of one 
chain of mountains with those of a more lofty chain. Such 
relative lowlands may lie at a great elevation above the 
sea, as the vale of Chamouni, for example, at the north 
foot of Mont Blanc, is 3000 feet above the ocean level. 
Both conceptions of the word lowland, which is common 
to elevated plains as well as those at the sea's margin, 
are entirely different, and should be kept distinct, although 
they are very often confounded. 

* In exact correspondence with the historic progress of upheaval 
is the internal and external aspect of the result. In direct con- 
nection with the extent, course, grandeur, succession of oceanic 
and volcanic forces, and in constructing new geological formations, 
is the inexhaustible variety of structure, in respect to continuity, 
degrees of fracture, as well as the more or less rich prodigality of 
mineral treasure brought to light. The later formations — the masses 
injected to fill up huge chasms opened by volcanic pressure from be- 
low — are easily distinguished from the primitive formation. These 
courses are usually the depositories of minerals, which the great 
internal heat has apparently sublimated and crystallized, giving ua 
our gold-sand, rock-salt, and the precious metals. 



LOWLANDS. 1 15 

We are to deal here only with the absolute, great, and 
generally diffused lowlands, in contrast with which the 
elevated valleys and plains just referred to may be con- 
sidered as mountain table-lands and the rims of plateaus. 

We assume, as we did in judging of the two grades of 
plateaus, an arbitrary standard of measurement, and limit 
the rise of real lowlands to an altitude of 500 feet above 
the level of the sea. Great tracts of running plain, rising 
by so slight a grade as to be almost imperceptible, can be 
regarded only relatively as lowland, and, in a strict sense, 
belong to those regions of transition which fall more truly 
within the domain of highland or plateau. The word 
plain indicates the opposite of hill or mountain, but has 
nothing to do with the greater or less degree of absolute 
elevation, although it is often used as if it had. 

The lower limits of lowlands are sharply defined enough. 
They are the margin of the sea, toward which the slope 
usually becomes almost imperceptibly small. Often the 
expression is used, yet not quite fitly, that the lowland 
extends into the sea for some distance, and is found be- 
neath the surface. Strictly this is the bottom of the sea, 
and does not fall under consideration in this connection. 

Many lowland plains rise so slightly above the sea level, 
that thef are not unfrequently submerged, and, in many 
cases, owe their existence to repeated overflows. They 
are the basins of old gulfs, as in the very slightly elevated 
plains of Caracas, whose whole shore is open to the in- 
fluences of the great Atlantic current flowing from east to 
west; or, as in the great Lombardy plain, which slopes at 
the same almost imperceptible degree toward the Adriatic. 
There are also some lowlands found in the interior of con- 
tinents, and these, too, sinking below the level of the sea ; 
but they are altogether exceptional, and only met with in 



116 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

two or three instances. Tliej are called, by an accommo- 
dation of an algebi'aic term, negative lowlands. To them 
belong the region around the Caspian and the Aral Seas, 
and the much smaller tract comprising the Dead Sea, and 
forming the Jordan valley ; besides, there is the Suez 
steppe, inclosing the bitter lakes between Asia and Africa ; 
and possibly the Beled-el- Jereed, in the western part of the 
Sahara and the central part of Australia. 

To these it might not be incorrect to join those partial 
lowlands which have been rescued by human efforts from 
the sea ; the marshes, for instance, behind the dikes of 
Holland, Sleswick, East Friesland, and at the mouths of 
the Vistula, the Weser, the Nile, the Ganges, and other 
rivers. 

The most extensive lowlands in the world are probably 
those which embrace Siberia, in Asia, and the Canadian 
and polar region of North America. Many great tracts, 
entirely inland, are in those flat districts covered by sea- 
water which was once driven in by great storms, and now 
lies stagnant, resulting in inapproachable swamps and mo- 
rasses. Yet, under the equator, there are immense low- 
lands, as, for instance, in the eastern Sahara, although this 
region is broken by strips of plateau, and is by no means 
that uniform lowland plain which it used to be Regarded. 
Northern Australia belongs to the same category, and 
also those immense plains which reach from the Atlantic 
so far into the interior of Brazil, along the lower Amazon. 
By the time, however, that they reach the middle course 
of that river, they have acquired, though in such imper- 
ceptible steps, a considerable degree of elevation, according 
to Humboldt's barometrical observations, and not reckoning 
certain limestone hills found there, from 1050 to 1200 feet. 
The plains of the middle Marauon are, therefore, true 



LOWLANIIS. Ill 

plains, but not absolute lowlands, and not to be identified 
with the great flat region at the mouth of the river, and 
in comparison with the real lowlands of Venezuela, which 
do not rise over 200 feet above the sea, and genuine pla- 
teau, which, level as it is and broad as it is, is far more 
elevated than the Yaldai plateau, in Russia. 

Almost all great river mouths are true lowlands — the 
Egyptian delta, the delta of the Ganges and the Indus, 
for instance, (the two latter being separated by the very 
moderate plateau (100 feet) between Delhi and Mooltan ;) 
to these we may add the delta of the Euphrates, the east 
shore of China, between the Bhie and the Yellow Rivers, 
and Senegambia, between the Senegal and the Gambia. 
And in America, the same thing occurs in the Missis- 
sippi, Orinoco, Amazon, and La Plata, where the innnense 
mass of water which they send to the sea passes through 
lowlands of very great extent. In the Mississippi they 
extend from the mouth as far north as the confluence 
of the Missouri and the Mississippi, where stands St. 
Louis, not 500 feet above the level of the sea. The 
prairies west of the lower course of the river rise rapidly, 
though imperceptibly to the eye, to the high terraces of 
Kansas, at Council Grove, varying from 1500 to 2000 
feet absolute elevation, and then more rapidly toward the 
west, to mountain plains or plateaus, from 3000 to 6000 
feet high. These, of course, lose the distinctive character 
of lowland. 

The mouth of the St. Lawrence is, in some respects, 
analogous. Lowlands accompany it for a great distance 
from the sea ; at Lake Ontario the elevation is only 232 
feet, at Lake Erie only 5,G5 feet. Yet the level tract is 
narrowed down to a mere border, and does not widen 
into great lowland plains. The contracted region of low 



118 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

country along the St. Lawrence is broken up, too, by rocky 
heights and rib-like ledges, whose absolute height, how- 
ever, is not to be confounded with the elevation of the 
plain which they traverse. 

In entire contrast are the broad plains of South Ame- 
rica, which lie along the course of the Orinoco, La Plata, 
and Amazon, the so-called pampas and savannas, which 
extend a great distance into the interior, farther, indeed, 
than investigators have yet thoroughly prosecuted their 
researches. In no continent are the distinctions between 
highland and lowland so sharply drawn as in America. 
The lowland plains occupy four-fifths of all the country 
east of the Andes, in South America: only one-fifth is 
highland ; for, notwithstanding the extent of low pla- 
teaus and diminutive mountains scattered through these 
great plains, yet their entire amount is inconsiderable, 
compared with the immense lowland tracts of that conti- 
nent. America has fitly been called the region of the 
greatest depression on the globe, because this is the pre- 
vailing characteristic of its whole eastern side, low- 
lands forming two-thirds of all America, and highlands 
only one-third. 

In Asia, the later hypsometrical observations have shown 
that the lowlands are by no means so extensive as they 
were formerly supposed. The highland extends, according 
to von Middendorf, much farther northeast of the Yenisei, 
toward the northern limit of Siberia and Tschatschi, than 
was formerly supposed ; and the Siberian plain extending 
westward to the Ural Mountains is narrowed down 
from 4,0^9,970 to 2,233,800 square miles. Yet this low- 
land comprises, including central Bokhara or Toorkistan, 
1,051,200 square miles, and other low Asiatic plains 
1,314,000, the enormous area of 4,599,000, or more than 



LOWLANDS. 119 

twice the extent of Europe, leaving 9,636,000 square miles 
for the highlands. 

In Africa there are almost no lowlands to speak of, ex- 
cepting the districts around the mouths of the great rivers 
indicated a few pages back. To all equatorial Africa this 
physical feature is entirely wanting. In the north, where 
the whole Sahara was formerly thought to be one vast 
low plain, there are now known to be the moderate pla- 
teaus already indicated. The area of true lowland is, 
therefore, sensibly diminished. Yogel's barometrical ob- 
servations have already shown us that the country around 
Lake Tchad is about 1200 feet above the sea; the surface 
of Lake Tchad is 850 feet above the ocean level, and the 
lower limit of that region does not, therefore, come within 
the range already set as the point where lowlands become 
highlands. 

In Australia the lowland seems to be the prevailing 
physical form, although here and there exceptions to it 
occur. 

In Europe there are three great lowland plains to be 
specially mentioned. The greatest, that of middle Europe, 
embraces the shores of the ISTorth Sea and the Baltic 
far inland, and extend the farthest to the southeast. A 
second, hardly of less extensive proportions, comprises all 
northern Russia as far as the White Sea and the Arctic. 
It embraces but one-third of the great polar plain, and is 
really one with the region beyond the Ural chain. The 
third is the region around the Black and Caspian Seas. 

The Middle European Lowlands. 
The Germanic-Sarmatia-Russian plain extends, without 
a break, from the mouths of the Rhine, through all central 
Europe, te the middle Volga and the Ural. It is pre-emi- 



120 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

nently a region of lowlands, without any elevations of im- 
portance, and having no change of level, except very gently 
undulating swells, and on the north and south margin 
plateaus which very seldom rise over 500 feet. It begins 
with the deltas of the Rhine and the Scheldt, in Holland, 
passes through Lower Westphalia, Lower Saxony, the 
Marks, Lower Silesia, Lower Gallicia, and Poland, as far 
as the upper Dnieper and the middle Volga. It extends 
up the Rhine as far as Strasbourg, 474 feet above the sea, 
up the Weser as far as Cassel, 486 feet, and up the Elbe 
as far as Dresden, 280 feet. 

The true Rhine delta may be defined as lying between 
Amsterdam, on the sea, and Dusseldorf, 101 feet above 
the sea level. Then passing by the broken and romantic 
tract lying between Dusseldorf or Cologne and Mayence, 
we come to the true Rhenish lowland, 240 feet above the 
sea. Munster is 400 feet above the ocean level. East 
of the Weser is the Ltineburg Heath, which advances in 
elevation, as we go toward the Elbe and the Havel, to 300 
or 400 feet. Brunswick lies at an altitude of 200 feet; 
Magdeburg, of 128 feet. The height gradually increases ; 
at Wittenburg it reaches 204 feet; at Dresden 280 feet, 
where the Elbe issues from the highlands ; and in Lower 
Silesia we find Breslau, 315 feet above the sea, and its 
observatory, standing on the hills around the city, at a 
height of 453 feet, which seems to be the highest point in 
the whole vast tract. 

Between the Rhine delta and the now dry basin of Pad- 
erborn, from the Ems to the Weser, AUer, and middle 
Elbe, is the mountain tract of the Hartz, (with the 
Brocken at the north, 3500 feet high,) running up as far 
as 62^° N. lat. By this natural feature the breadth of the 
great plain is considerably curtailed. As it is also more to 



THE MIDDLE EUROPEAN LOWLANDS. 121 

the east of the Leipsic basin, from which the Mulde, Elbe, 
and Bister flow, by the hill country of Lausatia and North 
Silesia, with the Riesengeberge, (Giant Mountains,) 5000 
feet high, which extends northward as far as 51° N. lat. 

A third basin is in the Silesian, from which the Oder flows 
toward the northwest, and enters the southern limits of 
the great plain near Oppeln and Brieg. A third tract 
of hill country lies on the east bank of the Oder, and ex- 
tends to the middle Vistula, the Tarnowitz Heights, in 
Upper Silesia, about 1000 feet in altitude. The plateau 
north of the Carpathian range, on which Cracow lies, is 
669 feet above the sea ; and the most northern hill group 
of Kielce, between the Pilica and the Vistula, rises in-the 
Kreutzberg to a height of 1920 feet, and in St. Catherine 
to 200D feet. 

The great lowland advances eastward, with always di- 
minishing breadth from north to south, over the extensive 
plains of the middle Vistula, at Warsaw, 330 feet above 
the sea ; over the Lithuanian morasses of the Bug ; over 
the Sarmatian district of Minsk and Pinsk as far as Kiev, 
on the middle Dnieper, at the southeast, and as far as 
Orsha and Smolensk, at the northeast. Pinsk, in the 
middle of this tract, lies about 400 feet above the sea. 
The north side of the plain is bounded by the very mod- 
erate plateau south of the Valdai hills, at Smolensk, "792 
feet high ; at Osmana, southeast of Minsk, 882 feet. On 
the south side it is bounded by the equally moderate pla- 
teau of Wolhynia and Podolia, whose absolute altitude is 
yet undetermined, but which, at the source of the Bug, is 
about 1000 feet. 

This is the great Lithuan-Sarmatian plain, which, east 
of the Dnieper, is transformed into the central Russian 
lowland, at whose middle point is Moscow, whose exact 
L IG 



122 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

elevation above the sea is between 300 and 400 feet ; at 
Kazan, on the Volga, the height above the ocean level is 
but 2^0 feet, measuring from the highest point on the 
banks. Southward, the plain reaches to Simbeersk, 181 
feet in altitude. The maximum breadth of this whole 
vast lowland tract is about 500 miles; the distance be- 
tween Smolensk and Kiev, and the distance from the cen- 
tral point of the great Russian section to any sea, is be- 
tween 500 and 600 miles. 

The Origin of the Great Central European Plain. 

The slight elevation of the lowland just described, rising 
but very little above the sea level, bears, throughout the 
most of its extent between the dunes of the north and the 
hill chains of the south, the character of a formation 
rescued from the domain of the sea within the very latest 
geological periods. The almost unbroken uniformity of 
the surface from the Scheldt to the Yolga, about 2500 
miles, confirms the character which its geological structure 
indicates. The deposition of disconnected, superimposed 
layers, running to a great depth, is exactly similar to that 
which we know results from the action now going on at 
the bottom of shallow seas. And in the great central 
European plain there is no sharply-defined geological limit 
met at the border of the North and the Baltic Seas. The 
same features extend beneath the surface of both of those 
seas. This whole lowland is, therefore, to be regarded as 
an immense basin, now dry, but once the bottom of a great 
sea, — an extension of the seas which now form a part of 
its northern border. The old coasts are now seen far in- 
land. Wherever this coast-Hne changed its course, the 
whole landscape now alters its appearance ; and yet more 
striking than the external view is the internal constitution 



ORIGIN OF THE CENTRAL EUROPEAN PLAIN. 123 

of the soil. Masses of stone, standing out in full view, 
reveal the inner structure of what lies concealed. And 
these rocky projections are precisely analogous to the 
jagged outlines of our present bold sea-shores. The land is 
not cut up by inlets hollowed out by the action of waves and 
currents to a considerable depth, yet traces of such move- 
ments, and of the physical formations effected by them, are 
found. Promontories and islands are now found in pla- 
teaus, and hills encompassing dry basins. To the latter 
belong the intervale of the Rhine, and the basins of P^ad- 
erborn, Leipsic, and Silesia. To the former belong the 
hills and plateaus of Middle Germany; of the Westpha- 
lian Mark, from Elberfeld to Dortmund, or, as might be 
said, from the Ruhr to the Lippe ; the Yeutoburg Forest 
to the Weser; then the Weser Mountains, and the Hartz 
to the middle Elbe ; the Thuringian Forest and the Ertz 
Mountains around the Leipsic basin to the upper Elbe ; 
the Lausatian Mountains and the Riesengeberge to the 
Glatz Mountains, on the upper Oder ; the Trebnitz Heights 
of Silesia, and the lower plateaus of the Fore Carpathian 
range, embracing Cracow as far as the hills of Kielce and 
the confluence of the Sau with the Vistula. Along the 
southern border of the ever-broadening plain are the pla- 
teaus of Gallicia, about 1000 feet in height, of Wolhynia 
and Podolia, and then less elevated plateaus, till we reach 
the Dnieper. 

The geological character of the border of the sea which 
once covered what is now central Europe, is full of inter- 
est, because from it can be deduced all that we can know 
of the history of those great changes.* But we must pass 

* See Fr Hoffman's Uebersiclit der orographisehen und geognos- 
tischen Verhaltnisse des nordwestlichen Deutscliland. Introduc- 
tion. 



124 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

over this, and only indicate the geographical configuration 
of the dry basin as it exists now, and forms the great Ger- 
manic- Sarmatia-Russian plain. 

In the course of previous remarks on the lowest range 
of plateaus, I have remarked, that along the south coast 
of the Baltic the moderately elevated hill chains of Pom- 
erania and of Old Prussia separated the true coast 
with its lowland from the great interior plain, forming a 
barrier, averaging about 300 feet in height, with here and 
there a form which runs hard upon the lower limit of pla- 
teaus of the second class ; at any rate, a transition from 
between the lowland and the plateau. 

It may here be remarked that the long, low chains, made 
up mainly of loose sand and other mixed and uncombined 
materials, and running along the southern border of that 
long, low band which skirts the Baltic, seem to be dunes 
once running along the shore of a sea which has now re- 
ceded many miles to the north. In the deep channels and old 
inlets now dry, as for instance in the great break through 
which the Vistula passes below Thorn, only loose breccia, 
and no united layers of stone, appear. Yet this does not 
seem to be the case everywhere, although in theCis-Ural and 
Baltic depressions dune-like ridges are to be found, some 
of them rising to a height much greater than was formerly 
suspected. These, it is true, are scattered, and only par- 
tially prevalent, but here and there they ascend to an alti- 
tude of nearly 1000 feet. At the eastern end of the great 
Pomeranian sea-plain west of Dantzic, and between that 
city and Biitow, where the sand ridge, which formed the 
ancient shore-line, runs very far to the north, there are a 
number of villages 400 feet above the sea. The Lower 
Mountain, (Thurmberg,) 54° 13' 29'' K lat, rises to a 
height of 1024 feet; the hill near Upper Buschkau, east 



ORIGIN OP THE CENTRAL EUROrEAN PLAIN. 125 

of the Thurmbei'g, is 814 feet high ; the hill near Hulter- 
feld, 846 feet; and the Hockerberg, near Sehonberg, 902 
feet. 

Of the Thurmberg, Humboldt remarks that it is the 
most remarkable elevation between the Hartz and the 
Ural Mountains, and that but a few points in the Yaldai 
range can be brought into comparison with it. Its posi- 
tion close by the sea is especially noteworthy. It is very 
probable, according to Humboldt's opinion, that those in- 
equalities of surface, formed of sand once partly or wholly 
submerged, — fouiicl in Mecklenberg, Pomerania, East 
Prussia Proper, — and now divided into flats and hill 
ranges, do not belong to the dune system of the ancient 
shore-line, but have the reason of their existence in or- 
dinary upheaval ; in the formation of limestone, and of the 
usual Jurassic rocks, which, afterward, have been covered 
with sand and other loose materials. The peculiar accumu- 
lation of genuine marine fossils indicates the existence of 
upheaved rocks below the upper layer of sand. 

It is these elevations which in the constantly advancing 
ridge or ridges run northeasterly, and take the form of 
plateaus, increasing in breadth from the water-shed north 
of Smolensk, and the source of the Dnieper, in the Yaldai 
Forest, and the western Uwalli, and which are found be- 
tween the Yolga and the Dwiner, and thence run eastward 
as far as Perm, on the Kama. They form the line of de- 
markation between the great Central European plain and 
the North Russian lowland, which extends as far up as 
the Arctic. This easterly chain, so far as it has been 
measured, seems to be less in altitude than the Yaldai 
hills, which are about 1000 feet high. In East Prussia 
Proper and Livonia there are elevations of more than 600 
feet; about 55 miles south of Dorpat Munnamiiggi, the 
L* 



126 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

point of culmination, accoi'ding to Struve, is 996 feet 
above the sea ; south of Yilna the heights of Puzewitch 
reach an elevation of 990 feet. 

In the same direction, still northeast, runs the Valdai, 
forming the source of a number of large streams and the 
great water-shed of eastern Europe. On the road from 
St. Petersburg to Moscow, Humboldt found the altitude 
at Norwaja Ijetza 660 feet, and the highest point at 
Popowa Gora 192 feet, (according to Pausner, 876 feet.) 
One point going south from the Yaldai, at Mosti Derewna, 
the latter naturalist has ascertained tot)e 1032 feet above 
the sea; and the highest point in the range is, according 
to Helmersen, 1098 feet. Still further eastward, between 
the Yaldai hills and the lake region between Lake Seligher 
and Bielo Ozero, the range of uplands, known as Uwalli, 
running northwesterly, intersected by numerous canals, and 
forming the water-shed of a number of rivers, gradually 
diminishes in height, but, still advancing eastward, it rises 
again, in the neighborhood of Perm and the Kama, to 1014 
feet, — about the elevation of the Yaldai range. LTwalli 
is only the Sclavic name of such hills as those whose 
absolute height is insignificant, but which, crossing as 
they do the great plains of Poland, Lithuania, and Russia, 
were formerly confounded with mountain ranges, and were 
so represented on the maps. They have, of course, great 
hydrographical value, and play a leading part as the water- 
shed of eastern Europe. 

The Ponto-Caspian Plain, the Great Depression of the 
Old World. 

This second vast lowland is the direct continuation of 
the central European lowland, with a decided sinking to- 
ward the Black and the Caspian Seas, indicated by the 



THE PONTO- CASPIAN PLAIN. 12T 

course of the rivers of that region. It extends from the 
mouth of the Danube over the lower Dniester, Bog, 
Dnieper, Don, and Volga, as far eastward as the Sea of 
Aral. To the last named the Siberian plain gradually 
declines. The southern plain of Europe stands in un- 
broken connection, so far as its formation is concerned, 
with the West Siberian plain, (2,213,400 square miles in 
extent,) and is, therefore, one of the most extensive low- 
lands on the globe. The Baltic-Sarmatian plain is sepa- 
rated from the West Siberian merely by the long Ural 
chain, (from 50° to 61° N. lat.,) whose elevation is only 
from 4000 to 5000 feet, and whose breadth is unimport- 
ant. Take away the Ural, and a continuous line could be 
drawn from Breda, near the confluence of the Meuse, 
Rhine, and Scheldt, across Europe and Asia, following the 
line of 50° N. lat. as far as the Chinese frontier, passing 
over a continuous series of low, insignificant hills, heath- 
lands, and steppes, and traversing a space estimated by 
Humboldt to be three times the length of the Amazon ! 

Toward the south, the Cis-Ural, European side of the 
Ponto-Caspian lowland, is separated from the Black Sea 
by a ridge of granite knolls, which passes from Volhynia 
and Podolia eastward as far as the cataracts of the 
Dnieper, and thence southeast, with diminished breadth, 
reaching its limit at Taganrog, on the lower Don, and the 
Sea of Azof. This ridge separates the narrow steppes 
of the northern shore of the Black Sea from the lowland 
of South Russia, the fruitful district of Ukraine. The 
height of these hills in the west, where they appear to 
have the greatest elevation, has been estimated to be 
Ebbout 1000 feet above the sea. Toward the Dnieper they 
have not yet been carefully measured ; but probably there 
they do not rise above TOO feet. 



128 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

The small sand steppe south of these granite hills runs 
from the Crimea eastward as far as the North Caucasian 
steppe, between the Don, Yolga, and the Caspian, and 
indeed may be traced to the northeast as far as the Bash- 
kiric-TJral chain. Lakes of marked saltness are found 
there : Elton, for instance, which lies 24 feet above the 
sea; while farther eastward they are found, as for exam- 
ple on the Kamysh and at Samara at a depression of 
—138 feet, 60 feet below the level of the Caspian Sea. 
Yet this lacks confirmation. 

From this lowland, only a few elevations arise, and 
these of insignificant absolute height ; yet, on account of 
the extreme uniformity of the whole country, they are ob- 
jects of amazement to the whole steppe world. The 
Little Bogdo, south of Lake Elton, and yet farther south. 
Great Bogdo, 504 feet above the sea, according to Hum- 
boldt, and Mount Arsargar, 331 feet in absolute height, 
according to Murchison, are the only important hills. 
The Great Bogdo is composed of calcareous limestone 
and of sandstone, with rich deposits of salt. 

The Kirgheez steppe separates, by a plain of very mod- 
erate elevation, the north Siberian lowlaad from the Cas- 
pian-Ural depression. It was formerly supposed, and in- 
deed represented on the map, that a mountain range 
passes through this district from the Ural chain to the 
Altai. The Kirgheez steppe appears to range from tSO to 
960 feet in elevation ; while the Siberian plain is but 280 
feet above the sea at Omsk, 192 feet at Tora, and 108 feet 
at Tobolsk. It has been considered by some that the 
Kirgheez steppe, as well as the granite hills of southern 
Russia, belong to an undeveloped system of mountains, 
an early cooling having solidified them before reaching the 
elevation which they would have attained ; and that they 



THE PONTO-CASPTAN PLAIN. 129 

partake of the direction which analogy would teach us 
such a chain would have, from northeast to southwest, 
parallel with the Carpathian and the Caucasus ranges. 

The great depression of the Old World begins with the 
deepening of the Volga basin below Simbeersk ; and at the 
place (51f° N. lat., near Orenboorg and Saratov) where it 
breaks through the last row of hills in the Obstshei-Syrtis, 
it commences a rapid descent toward the Caspian and 
the Aral Seas. This great concavity, on the confines of 
Europe and Asia, at the center of the greatest land-mass, 
and far removed from any ocean, is remarkable as having 
no parallel on the globe. Humboldt remarks that per- 
haps a similar phenomenon would be repeated at the inte- 
rior of other continents, if the tertiary formation and the 
parts found by marine deposit did not exist. It would be 
profitable to follow out so weighty a thought, with the sur- 
face as it now is. 

The Obstshei-Syrtis is the moderate range of hills which 
runs westward in two branches from the Bashkiric-TJral, 
at Orenboorg, the northei'n spur running by Uralsk and the 
Ural River; the southern by Samara, rising on the east 
shore of the Volga to a height of 600 feet, and ending at 
Sarepta. 

Orenboorg, on the Obstshei-Syrtis, where it leaves the 
Ural chain, is 255 feet above the sea. Uralsk lies some- 
what lower, being 234 feet above the sea. The surface 
of the Volga, where it breaks through the high banks of 
Saratov, is only 36 feet above the ocean level ; while the 
western shore, above Saratov, is 562 feet in height. Far- 
ther down the river, Sarepta lies 30 feet below the sea 
level ; and there is, therefore, between Saratov and Sarepta, 
a distance of about 180 miles, a fall of 66 feet. West of 
the Volga, and following the river, is the continuation of 

n 



130 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

the Obstshei-Syrtis, ranging in elevation from 562 feet 
down to 168 feet. At Sarepta, the low hills which thus 
far have skirted the Volga turn to the southwest, to the 
Manitsh steppe, sinking to an elevation of but 15 feet, and 
extending as far as the Sea of Azof. At Sarepta, too, the 
Yolga turns from its normal southerly course, and strikes 
southeasterly across the Astracan steppe, entering the 
Caspian at the City of Astracan, "12 feet below the level 
of the sea. The level of the sea is 4 feet below the shore 
on which Astracan is built. 

The old statements that the level of the Caspian is 30C 
feet below the ocean, rested solely on conjectures made by 
the naturalist Pallas. The influence of this great depres- 
sion on the warmer climate of that region, the peculiar 
vegetation of the salt steppes, and the salt morasses which 
exist where the land is perfectly level, as well as the great 
beds of oyster-shells and other crustaceous remains, led 
him to the hypothesis that the whole neighboring district 
is the dry and deserted bed of a former sea, now shrunk 
to the comparatively insignificant dimensions of the Cas- 
pian. The broken line of bold bluffs which bounds the 
Obstshei-Syrtis on the south seemed to him to be the 
northern boundary of this inland sea, into which the Volga 
entered below the pass of Kamyschin and Saratov. Par- 
rot and Engelhardt supposed that their barometrical ele- 
vations in 1811 confirmed Pallas' theory, that the Caspian 
lies 300 feet below the ocean. Many hypotheses were based 
upon their observations; but the whole were at length 
brought into discredit by Humboldt, who distrusted the 
accuracy of instruments made at that time. Nothing but 
a trigonometrical survey from Taganrog to Astracan could 
give conclusive results, and this was accomplished in 1837. 
under the auspices of the Russian government. The re- 



THE PONTO-CASPIAN PLAIN. 131 

suit proved that, so far from being 300 or 350 feet below 
the ocean, the Caspian is not 100 feet. Its depression, as 
already stated, is about Y6 feet. 

The level of the Aral Sea, which is evidently closely 
linked to the Caspian, has not yet been determined with 
absolute certainty. Barometrical observations were insti- 
tuted for this end by the expedition under General Berg, 
which explored that region in the winter of 1826, but the 
cold was severe, and the results are questionable. The 
result of their investigations was, however, that the sur- 
face of the Aral lies 110 feet higher than that of the 
Caspian. This would make the Aral to be 34 feet above 
the sea level. More careful inquiries may, however, de- 
termine the level of the two seas to be the same ; but at 
present we have to be content with the results of the ex- 
pedition referred to, and accept its elevation as 34 feet 
above the level of the ocean. 

Without, however, going into details respecting the 
Aral, the region around the Caspian and directly con- 
nected with it, which is below the ocean level, embraces 
an area of not leRS than 131,400 square miles. This sur- 
vey extends from the Volga to the Ural River, thence to 
the Emba and the northernmost point of the Sea of Aral, 
and thence to the salt lakes of Aksakal-Barbi, lying to the 
northeast of this sea. The tracing of this line from the 
higher to the lower stages of depression gives clear indi- 
cations, in the nature of the soil, of the existence of a great 
sea once occupying that whole tract. 

Thus much for the configuration of the Caspian low- 
land. If to these 131,400 square miles be added the 
153,000, or, according to Humboldt, 164,000 square miles 
of the Caspian itself, the entire depression embraces al- 
most 318,000 square miles, and is greater than France, 



132 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

greater than (iermany, and only to be compared witli the 
whole Austrian empire ! If to this great region be added 
the district around the Aral, which sea alone cov^ers nearly 
25,000 square miles, and then to this the yet unmeasured 
surface covered by seas yet to the eastward, the entire re- 
gion of depression is immensely increased. And then if 
to this be added the great Siberian plain, whose level is 
not greatly above the sea, the combined district would be 
at least once and a half as great as all Europe. 

The Origin of the Ponto-Caspian Depression. 

Thinking of the immense extent of this depressed re- 
gion, whose entire surface occupies no inconsiderable frac- 
tion of the interior of the Old World, and whose greatest 
depth at the bottom of the Caspian is from 500 to 600 
feet below the level of the ocean, and looking at it as a 
phenomenon wholly unique, the question arises: How 
would such a condition be possible, contradicting, as it 
seems, all analogies ? The answer, could we reach it, 
would not fail to illustrate many recondite geological 
questions, and to be full of instruction. 

Yet the time has not come when a full answer can be 
given to this inquiry. We have not yet learned the ele- 
mentary conditions of this remarkable fact; there are in- 
numerable investigations yet to be made, before we can 
feel perfectly certain that its reason is understood. Still, 
there have been some preparatory inquiries entered upon, 
and some preliminary steps taken toward reaching a con- 
clusion, or, at least, toward assuming a reasonable hy- 
pothesis. We have already indicated our belief that i,his 
depression is connected with a ring of plateaus which hav^e 
Vjeen upheaved around it, and which now inclose ir and 
isolate it from the ocean. 



ORIGIN OF THE PONTO-CASPIAN DEPRESSION. 133 

The h'/llow has its greatest depth near the southern ex- 
tremity of the Caspian, where it rises abruptly to the Per- 
sian plateau. There pass, in the form of a half circle, the 
loftiest mountains and plateaus of central Asia. . On the 
west side the Caucasus rises, with its giant peaks of Kas- 
bek and Elbrooz, 15,000 to IT, 000 feet high, bearing all 
the marks of volcanic origin, — avalanches of solidified lava 
on the sides, a lake lying in the abyss of an extinct crater, 
and the like. 

At the southwest, the Armenian plateau follows the 
course of the Aras from its mouth back to the huge dome 
of Ararat, 14,656 feet high. The entire geological ap- 
pearance of that region — the old lava streams, the tra- 
chyte rocks — indicate Avith equal clearness, as in the Cau- 
casus, the agency of volcanic forces in the upheaval of that 
district. Traces of this great power are also seen in the 
caldron -shaped hollows, and in the narrow and deep de- 
files, which are abundant in that region. 

South of the Caspian, which in its southern part reaches 
a depth i^anging as low as 420, 480, and 600 feet, and, ac- 
cording to Hanway, even 2*700 feet, rise sharply from the 
sea the Persian Coast Mountains. The plateau of Te- 
heran, 3400 feet in elevation, is directly beyond, from 
which rise the volcanic peaks of Demavend, 20,000 feet, 
and Euczan, 6600 feet high. The Coast chain embraces 
the Elboorz Mountains, uniformly more than 5000 feet high, 
but which, at Schemrum, northwest of Teheran, rise to a 
height of 8560 feet; at Churchurah, southwest of Dema- 
vend, to 1650 feet; at Nevo, southeast of Demavend, to 
8540 feet ; at Nejoster, in the Seriakush, east of Dema- 
vend, to Y200 feet; and which, above A sterabad, rise in 
the Shahkush and the Sundukkush to a height of 1270 
feet, and almost everywhere display in their trachyte rocks 
M 



134 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

the traces of ancient volcanic activity. Still farther to the 
east, the chain which has girdled the Caspian sinks from 
the lofty height of the Northern Taurus to 1812 fept; in 
Meshed, 2628 feet; in Herat, an average elevation of 
3400 to 4000 feet. But east of Herat it rises abruptly to 
the lofty plateaus of Bamian and Cabool, 7000 and 8000 
feet high, and in the peaks of Colubeba 16,800 feet. The 
Hindoo Koosh, at Dsellalabad, rises to a height of 18,984 
feet; the table-lands of the Bolor, at the Issikul, are at an 
elevation of 14,664 feet; while the gigantic Pameer is not 
yet measured, though its noted Pass is estimated at 18,000 
feet above the sea. 

At this point we reach almost the 40th degree of N. lat., 
whence northward the mountain ranges gradually decline 
in height, after throwing off eastward the great chain of 
Thian-Shan. From the sharp angle formed by the Hindoo 
Koosh and the Bolor, where the head-waters of the Gihon 
rise, that large but commercially unimportant river takes 
its way westward through the Bokharan table-land, falling 
so rapidly in its course to Bokhara that at the city its 
surface is but 1116 feet above the sea, then striking north- 
westerly to the Aral and Caspian. The course of that 
stream indicates, therefore, the direction and degree of 
the mountain slope toward the great depression east of 
the Caucasus and Armenia, north of the Persian high- 
land, and west of the Hindoo Koosh and the Bolor systems. 

The lower course of the Gihon, from Bokhara down- 
ward, is through masses of mud, sand, and gravel, and 
can very easily be conceived to have changed its course in 
the lapse of centuries, from the Caspian to the Aral, as 
the course of the Sihon seems also to have changed. The 
great Bokharan plain is covered in this part with a deposit 
of dried mud ; it is a steppe formed evidently from a now 



ORIGIN or THE PONTO-CASPIAN DEPRESSION. 135 

dry sea-basin, which, no less than the northern shores of 
the Caspian and the Aral, displays the traces of the oceanic 
character of entire regions. 

Halley, the astronomer, made an attempt to solve the 
mysterious origin of this great sunken basin, and attrib- 
uted it to the stroke of a first-class comet ! Arago, instead 
of calling into the scene meteorological forces little known, 
contented himself, in his theory of its origin, with the 
forces which we know are active even now on the earth 
the plutonic powers which are only half confined by the 
surface of the globe. No one, he says, will hesitate now 
to accept the upheaval theory, through which geology is 
able so clearly to indicate the forces and progress of struc- 
ture of the soil and rocks. The upheaval of great masses 
in one place predispx)ses the depression of districts in their 
neighborhood, to make good the true relation of highland 
to lowland. And in this case a compensation may be 
found, according to Arago, for the great semicircle of 
mountains which passes around the southern margin of 
the Caspian basin, in the depression caused by the natural 
falling in of the adjacent region when the great mountains 
of western Asia were upheaved. 

In longitudinal mountain chains the parallel ranges of 
valleys have a similar origin ; in volcanic chains, which 
have been thrown up in a circular form, similar depres- 
sions have been found in the middle, although, it must 
be confessed, on a much smaller scale of dimensions than 
in the Caspian hollow. The same feature is observable 
in the upheavals, by Von Buch, as observed in the Island 
of Palma, one of the Canaries, or in the Yal di Bove, near 
Etna. Such depressions would at once fill with water, if 
connected with the sea, as in the cup- shaped island San- 
torini, or remain land-locked, if they occur in the interior, 



136 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

as in the case of Lake Laach, as the half-ring of mount- 
ains girding the lower portion of the Caspian seems to 
consist mainly of trachyte thrown up by volcanic agency: 
the analogy just drawn does not seem too remote. Yet 
the process of sti'ucture must have had other concomitant 
conditions to account for the vast reach northward of the 
Caspian depression. It is clear that any such volcanic 
convulsion as would throw up those vast mountain ranges 
at the south, must have affected largely the geological con- 
dition of all the adjacent I'egion ; the extent vertically of 
this effect would be best ascertained perhaps by deep 
boring. Unquestionably there was many a revolution in 
the upper portions of the earth's crust during the forma- 
tion of the great Caspian hollow, before it assumed its 
present condition. From the agencies at work in connec- 
tion with a great internal ocean, the upper soil, as we have 
it to-day, was formed. 

The Aral and the Caspian Seas remain as the lowest 
places of that great depression, water being found in them, 
while elsewhere it has entirely disappeared by evaporation : 
leaving us broad, low plains, instead of that great ocean 
which once extended from Persia over all Siberia, and west of 
the Caspian to the Sea of Azof. A more thorough account, 
geographical as well as geological, cannot be given till 
after much more extended investigations have been made 
into the physical characteristics of this region than as yet 
have been prosecuted. It may be remarked here, that the 
waters of the Aral and Caspian are bitter and salt, but 
not so much as those of the ocean ; the bottom is covered 
with slime and sand. The Aral has a depth ranging from 
90 to 222 feet; the Caspian, beginning with its extensive 
shallows at the north, deepens toward the south, till, 
reaching the lower third, its depth is over 600 feet; 



ORIGIN OF THE PONTO-CASPIAN DEPRESSION 137 

and thence southward it is no less deep, till it reaches the 
bold shore of Eusellis. From this lowest point the up- 
heaval begins, which culminates in the great mountains 
on its southern border. 

According to Humboldt's view, the great Caspian hol- 
low embraces not only the basin of the sea, but a vast dry 
plain, extending northward as far as Saratov and the Ob- 
stshei-Syrtis; even Uralsk lies lower than the level of the 
Black Sea. The same physical feature, though on a less 
extended scale than here, is found in Holland, China, 
Lower Egypt, and Palestine. Subsequently to the emer- 
gence of the continents, long before the filling in of huge 
fissures by mountain chains, and during the continuance 
of those great convulsions which reach back into the re- 
motest geological periods, the surface of the continents 
must have been subjected to frequent partial changes of 
level. The surface undulated probably in that same wave 
movement which is now observable, though in much less 
degree, in those earthquakes and upheavals which the 
whole western part of South America is experiencing 
even now. 

The depressions which have assumed a permanent form 
since the convulsions which formed them, have gradually 
filled with deposited soil, and, were the naturalist able to 
lay bare the primitive rock, he would discover that it ex- 
ists in the shape of great concavities, without a trace of 
that evenness which now characterizes the surface. Eich- 
wald has made it probable, by his personal observations, 
that the upheaval of Ararat and of the Armenian plateau 
on which this trachyte mountain rests, has driven the 
Caspian Sea back east of the flat steppe of Karabagh and 
Mogan, on the lower Aras, to the neighborhood of Bakoo. 
The water of that sea formerly extended to the confluence 
M* 18 



138 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

of the Bargashad, (called also Bergershat and Bergeruct,) 
with the Aras, below Ireben. The traces of volcanic ac- 
tion there are decisively evident : the Caspian reached, be- 
fore that action occurred, up what is now the valley of the 
Aras, as far as Ararat; and in many places south of 
Erivan — at Saliyan, in Shirwan, and elsewhere — salt beds 
of the most crystalline quality, forming whole mountains 
and whole belts of salt lakes at the confluence of the Aras 
and the Koor, demonstrate their formation in a former sea 
which once covered that region. The very recent up- 
heaval of the Ural chain cannot fail also to have had an 
influence in contracting the dimensions of the Caspian 
hollow. 

Only two kindred depressions to this remain to be 
spoken^ of, which, though of not so great superficial di- 
mensions, ai'e of yet greater depth — the depression of the 
Jordan Valley and the bitter salt lakes on the Isthmus of 
Suez. These we must consider before we pass from 
the contrasts between highlands and lowlands to the 
transitions between them. 

The Depression of the Jordan Valley and of the 
Dead Sea. 

The nearest relationship to the Caspian hollow, dis- 
played by any similar feature, is found near the heart of 
the Old World, in the comparatively diminutive and iso- 
lated valley of the Jordan, including the Dead Sea, whose 
absolute depth below the level of the ocean has been de- 
termined only within the most recent period. Many 
former travelers had noticed, in the deep gulf which holds 
the Dead Sea, and especially at its north end, near Jericho, 
a much greater degree of heat than elsewhere in Pales- 
tine, and the existence of many plants and fruits which 



THE JORDAN VALLEY AND THE DEAD SEA. ]39 

they bad met in the hotter climates of Arabia and India. 
The tree wliich yields the Mecca balsam flourishes in the 
oasis of Jericho ; the product of the balsam of Palestine 
supplied the pin-money of Cleopatra. A number of Ger- 
man and English observers endeavored to solve the ques- 
tion of the depth of the Jordan basin — von Schubert, 
Russeger, von Wildenbruch, Moore, and Bake, later Sy- 
monds, and Lynch ; de Berton and Russeger made the 
first barometrical observations at the Dead Sea, but they 
did not attempt to give more definite limits to their results 
than to assert that its surface is somewhere between 500 
and 1100 feet beneath the ocean level. 

Yon Shubert's barometer did not suffice to determine 
this point, but he ascertained the surface of Lake Tiberias 
to be 535 feet below the surface of the Mediterranean. 
All barometrical measurements were unreliable at that 
depth ; yet it could not be denied that the depression could 
not be an insignificant one. A measurement with the 
level made by Symonds, an Englishman, from Jaffa to the 
Dead Sea, in 1843, gave us our first sure results. The 
surface of the lake lies 1231 feet beneath the level of the 
Mediterranean at Jaffa. The subsequent expedition of 
the Americans — Lynch, Dale, and Anderson, in 1848 — has 
given the following additional results : — 

The surface of Lake Tiberias lies beneath the ocean level, 612 ft. 
" " the Dead Sea " " " 1235 " 

Soundings of the Dead Sea, made with the greatest 
care, determined the depth to be, according to Lynch, 
1221 feet; according to Symonds, 19T0 feet. The entire 
depression below the ocean level would be, then, by 
Lynch's measurement, 1235 + 1227 == 2462 feet ; accord- 
ing to Symonds', 1235 -f 19t0 = 3205 feet. This is the 



140 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

greatest known depression on the globe. Jerusalem lies 
2449 feet above the ocean level. From the roofs of the 
city to the sm'face of the Dead Sea is, therefore, 2449 + 
1235 = 3684 feet; and the entire descent from the capital 
to the bottom of the Dead Sea is 4911 feet, if we adopt 
Lynch's measurement, and 5654, if we follow Symonds'. 
The basin of the Dead Sea consists of two very diflTer- 
ent parts — the larger and deeper northern one, the smaller 
and shallow southern one ; the two being separated by a 
sandy peninsula — el Mesraa — and connected by a narrow 
channel of insignificant depth. The northern basin seems 
to owe its present form to the unchanged primitive de- 
pression ; the southern one to a partial upheaval at some 
later epoch. But in breadth they do not vary much one 
from the other; both have their larger axis coincident with 
the Jordan valley, which here widens a little, but which 
is still hemmed in here, as farther north, by the parallel 
ranges of mountains. The chain east of the sea appears 
to rise a thousand feet higher than the one west of it. 
The depths of the two basins are entirely unlike. The 
southern is nowhere more than 12 feet deep, and di- 
minishes to 5 feet and less than this near the shores, so 
that the southern half of it is entirely unnavigable by craft 
of any size ; and those who wish to land have to wade 
for a long distance through mud as deep as their ankles. 
The northern part, on the contrary, attains a uniform 
depth of more than 1000 feet, from the north to the south ; 
in the northern third it is even 122T feet; toward the west 
coast it shoals to between 600 and 800 feet, but is 500 feet 
deep hard-by the coast. There is but a very narrow rim 
of shallow water on the western side, and the navigation 
is, therefore, tolerably safe. On the eastern shore the coast 
is even bolder, and the descent to deep water immediate. 



THE JORDAN VALLEY AND THE DEAD SEA. 141 

Close by the romantic mouth of the Arnon, embouching 
through rocks, the depth of the sea is about 1052 feet. So 
great a diflference in the depth of the two basins seems to 
indicate a considerable diversity in the manner of their 
formation. 

Yolcanic activities have been felt in the Jordan 
valley up to the present time. They manifest themselves 
in various forms — deposits of salt, hot springs and naphtha 
springs, asphaltum beds, sulphur fumes, currents of heated 
air, clouds of smoke, and rumblings beneath the surface. 
The Jordan valley remained, from Lake Tiberias dow^n, 
unfilled, as we should infer from analogy that it would be 
by the upheaval of a chain of volcanic mountains; or by 
the expansion of an internal lake or sea, the waters ac- 
cumulating till at last they should acquire such volume as 
to break away and form new channels. In case the ob- 
structions were too great, ihey would remain inland lakes. 
And such is the Dead Sea, its southern border being too 
high to allow it a free exit into the Red Sea. 

Many other fissures or hollows on the surface of the 
continents would be regarded as lowlands, were they not 
filled with water. The bottoms of such lakes often sink 
suddenly to a great depth, while others are lagoon-like, or 
shallow seas of an entirely different hydrographical charac- 
ter. Internal lakes, regarded as isolated lowlands, merely 
filled with water, are an especially interesting theme of 
study; yet much remains to be investigated regarding 
their structure and historical formation. The Dead Sea 
has been regarded, up to this time, as the deepest of all 
such lakes. The greatest depth of the Caspian has not 
yet been fully ascertained ; but if Hanway's soundings, 
2100 feet, are to be relied on, it is very gi-eat. Lake Bai- 
kal, in its deepest part, between the two steep walls of 



143 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

rock which i*ise high above the surface, has not yet been 
carefully sounded ; but as its surface is 1500 feet above 
the sea, its bottom does not probably fall below^ the ocean 
level. The great chain of North American lakes, whose area 
embraces about 109,500 square miles, are surrounded by 
level country from 500 to 600 feet above the sea — a region 
which, in part, falls under the designation of plateaus of 
the lowest class, and which, in part, comes under the name 
of lowland ; the surface of Lake Superior being 62*7 feet 
above the sea, Lakes Michigan and Huron 518 feet each, 
Lake Erie 565 feet, and Lake Ontario 232 feet. The 
three first named, having a depth of about 900 feet, have 
their beds about 300 feet below the surface of the ocean ; 
Lake Ontario, with a depth of 500 feet, reaches a point 
268 feet below the sea level. The depth of the St. Law- 
rence river bed, as related to the sea, is not ascertained. 
The most of the Swiss lakes, too, having a depth often of 
more than 1000 feet, come under the same category with 
the lakes under consideration above, waters from the 
mountains having gradually filled up chasms made at the 
time of the upheaval of the adjacent region. Some of 
these lake basins may be deep enough to lie below the 
level of the ocean. 

The Bitter Lakes of the Suez Isthmus. 

Some bitter salt lakes on the Isthmus of Suez, forming 
a chain from the Red Sea to the southeast corner of the 
Mediterranean, long claimed attention from their supposed 
singularity. During the occupation of Egypt by the 
French in 1*799, a survey of the district was made with 
the level, in view of a prospective canal across the isth- 
mus, connecting the Nile with the Red Sea. An account 
of that survey was published by Le Pere, in his great 



THE BITTER LAKES OF SUEZ. H3 

Description de I'Egypte, The result of tlie surv^ey was 
very surprising ; it assigned to the Gulf of Suez a height 
of 25 feet at eb'b tide and 30^ feet at flood tide, above the 
level of the Mediterranean, a result which seemed to agree 
with Pliny's account (vi. 23) of the elevation of the Red 
Sea above the level of lower Egypt. The salt swamps 
lying between the two seas, and known even to the an- 
cients, lie, according to the same authority, 20 feet below 
the surface of the Mediterranean, and 50 feet below that 
of the Red Sea. These singular statements were not re- 
ceived without considerable doubt as to their correctness; 
but during the military disturbances in that region, no re- 
vision of the investigations could be made. Certain cir- 
cumstances connected with an unusual inundation of the 
Nile in 1800, when its waters flowed as far as the trans- 
verse valley called the Wady Tumilet, in which the salt 
lakes lie, and where traces of the ancient canal, built by 
the Egyptians between the seas, could be seen, seemed to 
confirm the result of the survey of 1199. The inference 
was a natural one — that the sandy Isthmus of Suez was 
an accumulation of dunes, and of the deposits of inunda- 
tions of both the Mediterranean and Red Seas, and that 
the salt morasses in the middle are but a trace of the 
primitive bottom. There were not wanting defenders of 
the old measurement, Favier being the most prominent. 
Since 1845 five surveys have been made, in reference to 
the projected canal. These all contradict the results of 
1199, and show that there is but the difference of four- 
sevenths of a foot between the level of the two seas, and 
that there is the same agreement there as in all other 
parts of the earth. Many hypotheses, built on the old 
measurement, have accordingly fallen to the ground. 



144 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

The Regions of Transition between Highlands and 
Lowlands ; the River Systems of the Globe. 

Between the two great and most sharply-marked physi- 
cal features — the high plateaus and mountains and the 
lands of very little elevation — there are regions of transi- 
tion very numerous and exceedingly varied. 

The conception of highlands and of lowlands having a 
certain, constant, and absolute value, and it being imma- 
terial whether the elevation be specially marked or not, 
provided it be uniform, the regions of transition find their 
most marked characteristics in their want of constancy, 
in their very change, and the rate at which the grade 
ascends from a low to a high elevation, or falls from a 
high to a low one. Their real value lies in the mutual 
compensation of highlands and lowlands, which is effected 
through the mediation of a third physical feature or sys- 
tem, which has received the name Lands of Gradation, or 
Terrace Lands, and which, by their gradual rise from the 
sea level, serve as the means of transition from the lowest 
lowlands to the loftiest plateaus and mountains. 

Terrace Lands and Rivers in their General Character. 
Districts sloping to the sea, or lands of gradation, as we 
have called them, varying as they do in elevation and in 
relative situation to each other, are the true mediators be- 
tween the districts but little above the level of the sea 
and others much more lofty. At the sources and the 
mouths of rivers they partake, more or less fully, in the 
characteristics of both highland and lowland. The man- 
ner of their mediation, as determined by the rate of the fall 
of water and by their direction, gives to every one of these 
regions of transition its peculiar character, determines its 



TERRACE LANDS AND RIVERS. 145 

conformation and its relation to the globe. And yet, no 
more than in lowlands and highlands, can we rid ourselves 
of some arbitrary data relating to the size of rivers, when 
we discriminate between those which we call large and 
those which we call small. As in all other geographical 
distinctions, we must here be content with arbitrary ap- 
proximation, and with the ordinary usages of speech. 
The comparison of streams, in regard to their breadth 
and fullness, determines their volume ; the comparison, in 
respect of length and tributary waters, determines the 
compass of the river system. The entire characteristics, 
breadth, depth of channel, length and extent of drainage, 
determine the status of the river, whether first, second, or 
third class, in relation first to those of the same continent, 
and then to those of the world. The Yolga, for instance, 
is, in relation to Europe, a first-class river, but, like the 
Danube, in relation to the entire globe, is merely in the 
second or third rank. Not the length alone determines 
the importance of rivers. The Thames, one of the small- 
est streams in Europe, is one of the most important. And 
aside from commercial considerations, a river of insignificant 
size can have great influence in consequence of its relation 
to the entire adjacent region. The little Bavarian Isar, a 
river which, so far as the great world is concerned, seems 
to have no importance, receives on the left side the water 
of 860 tributary brooks, among which are 44 rivulets; on 
the right bank the water of 433 : these 1293 brooks and 
rivulets pour themselves into the Isar through 103 direct 
tributaries, and not these alone, but the waters of 136 
lakes are embraced within the Isar system! Yet the 
Isar is only one of 34 branches of the Danube, and of the 
fourth rank even among them, and the Danube is by no 
means one of the great rivers of the globe. A short but 

xV ly 



146 COMrARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

navigable stream can have great influence over a territory 
limited in extent, and may make a long but shallow stream 
sink into insignificance in respect of comparative import- 
ance to the world. There are some great streams which are 
of first magnitude in all their characteristics — rivers which 
drain millions of square miles in their course to the sea. 
The number of such is small, however; there are scarcely 
fifty on the whole globe. Besides these, there is a large 
number of rivers much shorter, and of much less volume, 
but not deficient in the attributes which give a stream 
value to man, and which serve to mediate between high- 
lands and lowlands, to fulfill the needs of navigation and 
to drain regions of more or less magnitude. These can 
be classed in four ranks : in the first place absolutely, and 
in the second place in relation to each continent. Yet, in 
classing them, it is necessary always to keep in mind that 
it is not size alone which gives a river its value, but a 
combination of all its characteristics, and its relative in- 
fluence on the country through which it runs. 

Looking at the direction of streams, we observe that 
there are some which flow northerly, as for instance those 
of Siberia, the Nile, the Rhine, the Elbe, and the Weser ; 
there are those which flow southward — the Indus, Ganges, 
Euphrates, La Plata, Mississippi, and Volga, for example ; 
there are those flowing eastward — Hoang-ho and Yang- 
tse-Kiang, the Amazon, the Orinoco, and the Danube, for 
instance; and some westward, instances of which may 
be found in the Grihon and Sihon, the Senegal, Gambia. 
Niger, the Colorado, the Seine, Loire, Garonne, and the 
Spanish rivers which enter the sea in Portugal. 

And this characteristic, trite and unmeaning as it may 
at first seem, establishes, for the area which these rivers 
water, very diverse conditions. In like manner, too, theii' 



TERRACE LANDS AND RIVERS. 147 

position, in relation to the oceans into whicli they flow, is 
very influential, in consequence of the action of the tide 
upon the lower course. The emergence of their head-wa- 
ters at various altitudes, whether on plateaus of the first or 
second class, or on mountain tops covered with perpetual 
snow, gives rise to a great diversity of relations, thai 
makes no one stream on the earth twin brother to any 
other. Rivers have an individuality which claims recog- 
nition, although they are usually summed up in one 
category. 

This diversity in rivers becomes more apparent from a 
study of the diversified form of the terraces, or grades of 
transition, through which they pass on their way to the sea. 

The great basin of the Nile is divided into three distinct 
parts or grades — Abyssinia, Nubia, and Egypt; and each 
of them has long been studied historically and physically. 
The great basin of the Rhine is also naturally divided into 
three grades — the Swiss highlands, the German moderate 
plateau, and the lowlands of Holland. In a similar man- 
ner there may almost always be traced in rivers three 
natural grades, and where they do not have, as in the 
cases just cited they do have, a historical significance, 
their physical influence is not hard to trace and to follow 
Into all its analogies. 

The word water-shed, now a familiar one, is applied to 
that point of division where contiguous springs pour their 
water in difi'erent directions. It is not even in a mountain- 
ous country necessarily coincident with the highest points 
of the chain, though it may be ; the valleys may slope in 
such a way as to have more influence in determining the 
direction of running water than the mountains hard by. 
Every stream has its own water-shed system, and this 
system is the real boundary of its basin. If we. trace this 



148 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

basin to its very limits on the highlands, we may find, not 
a mile away, the beginnings of another river, which shall 
flow in just the contrary direction, as for example in the 
case of the Rhine and Rhone, the Volga and the Dwina. 
The sources of the Missouri and of the Columbia lie close 
together, not a quarter of an hour's walk apart ; yet the 
waters of one flow into the Atlantic, of the other into the 
Pacific, and their mouths are almost 2500 miles apart. 
The Mongolians hold the water-shed in such estimation 
that they throw up a heap of stones wherever one occurs, 
establish it a shrine for prayer ; and the Toongooses of Si- 
beria never pass by one without casting a cedar branch 
upon the stone heap, that, to use their expression, " the 
holy mountain that parts the waters may not lessen, but 
increase." 

The main channel is the stream proper ; the others are 
tributaries. The longest tributaries coming in from the 
region where the river proper rises, can be grouped inti- 
mately with the source of the main current, hardly distin- 
guished from it in relative importance — the two, for in- 
stance, in the Nile, the five in the Indus, two in the 
Granges, three in the Amazon, etc. All form in their con- 
fluence the real channel of the river. And the entire body 
of tributaries, taken in conjunction with the river proper, 
forms the river system, and the district which they all drain 
is their true reciprocal. The two, in their mutual action 
and reaction, form a whole, and are always thought of to- 
gether. The source and the mouth are the beginning and 
the end of the whole system ; the main channel and the 
circuit of water-shed, the center and the circumference of it. 
All the tributaries in their union constitute what may be 
called the arterial system of the river basin ; the form of 
each and the characteristics of each are analogous to those 



TERRACE LANDS AND RIVERS. 149 

of the whole, only in reduced pattern. The network which 
all the tributaries make is often surprisingly intricate. The 
symmetry with which the main characteristics of a river 
system are carried into the details, even of its smallest 
accessories, can only be compared to that observable in 
the architectural regularity of a tree, as it expands from 
the main trunk into the countless symmetrical branches. 

There are some rivers which are entirely independent 
of tributaries — which pursue their way to the sea entirely 
alone. Such rivers, however, never belong to the first 
class; they are always of subordinate magnitude, and the 
humblest of them are mere coast torrents, hke those west 
of the Andes. Others find their way to no ocean, but lose 
themselves in an inland sea or lake, as the Yolga does in 
the Caspian; as the Gihon and the Sihon do in the Aral; 
as the Jordan does in the Dead Sea. Others disappear in 
sand wastes or in morasses ; such are the rivers of the 
African steppes. Others are blocked up, as it were, by 
the tidal wave of the ocean, and are thus converted into 
estuary lakes. 

There are some rivers, also, which remain equally or 
nearly equally full the whole year through ; there are 
others which have their seasons of overflow: the Nile, 
for instance, and many rivers whose basin lies within the 
region of tropical rains; there are temporary rivers, now 
full, now empty, which, if they do not leave, like the tor- 
rents of Arabia, a perfectly dry bed, are traced in the dry 
season by a row of stagnant lakes, such, for example, as 
are found in the swampy lands of Australia. 
N* 



150 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

Rivers more closely considered. 

What is peculiar to every river is determined by the 
abundance of its sources, the forking of its tributaries, the 
rate of its descent, the distance from its most remote 
springs to its mouth, the main direction of its course, 
and the greater or less sinuosities of its channel, as occa- 
sioned by the structure of the country which it traverses. 

The abundance of its waters is conditioned by the 
greater or less amount of snow which finds the highest 
springs, the heavy rains which it receives in tropical coun- 
tries, and the exceedingly varied influences which temper- 
ate climates may exert upon it. The fall softens from the 
rush and plunge of the mountain district, first to an arrowy 
swiftness, then to a moderate course, then to a beautiful 
gliding motion, to end with an almost imperceptible flow 
just before entering the sea. 

The direction of rivers is determined : — 

1. By the structure of the region which they traverse, 
the layers being in some places horizontal, and in others 
tilted to a vertical position ; here grouped, as in the granite 
Carpathian chain, in such a way that the river courses 
which begin there run in parallel lines, radiating like the 
rays of a star from a central point; then grouped in such 
a manner that a stream may receive tributaries from two 
nearly contiguous ranges, as among the spurs of the Ural 
Mountains, the Rhone in Yalais, receiving waters from 
the Bernese Alps at the north, and Pennine Alps at the 
south ; the Isere, in like manner, the Upper Rhine in 
Grisons, the whole Upper Inn in Tyrol. 

2. The direction is also determined by the mutual action 
of tributaries and the main stream at the point of conflu- 
ence. Very often the union of two powerful currents 



EIVBRS MORE CLOSELY CONSIDERED. 151 

gives rise to a third direction, according to the law linown 
as the parallelogram of the forces. This generally occurs 
when no obstacle stands in the way of their taking a 
normal course, and is exemplified in the cases of the Kama 
and Volga, the Theiss and Danube, the Rhine and Main, the 
Saone and Rhone. Where an obstacle stands in the way, 
their abnormal direction is manifested in the abrupt bend- 
ings of the river bed. An instance is found in the bending 
of the Rhone northward as it emerges from Valais. Its 
lower course, from Lake Geneva to Lyons, betrays the 
same angularities, resulting from the obstacles which it 
meets and cannot remove. The Rhine, breaking through 
the Jura at Basel, is another instance ; the Rhine, between 
Bingen and Caub, and the Dal-Elf, in Sweden, also exem- 
plify the same. 

In case that rivers meet in their course large masses 
of stratified rocks, they force their way through them in 
a zigzag direction, making sharp angles always, and not 
unfrequently right angles, even. Instances of this are 
found in the Rhine, between Mayence and Coblentz, and 
in the Moselle, between Treves and Coblentz. When the 
river passes beyond these rocky barriers, and meets with 
obstructions of a more movable character, it crowds them 
more gently and gracefully aside, and leaves a path more 
sinuous and wave-like ; and yet more gentle are its curves, 
as it opens a way through the plains where nothing ob- 
structs its course. The last is strikingly exemplified in 
the rivei's of eastern. Europe, especially in all those of 
middle and southern Russia, The practised eye can de- 
termine the structure of the soil with considerable cer- 
tainty, by merely tracing the course of rivers when repre- 
sented on a faithful map. For, unless there be other 
reasons to prevent, rivers always force their way where 



152 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

there is the least resistance to overcome. In stratified 
rocKS, where the tilt is so great as to make the strata 
vertical, the river beds usually run parallel with the lines 
of stratification. Instances are found among the Al- 
pine rocks, in Valais along the Rhone, in Tyrol along the 
Inn and Adige, in Grisons, and among the Jura along the 
Rhine. Where the lines of stratification are horizontal, 
rivers Usually take their course through the most marked 
ravines and fissures. 

In most mountains, hoAvever, the lines of stratification 
are neither vertical nor horizontel, but intermediate be- 
tween them, more or less sloping, as in most marked 
ranges of central Germany, for example. In such cases, 
the process of excavating river beds has been determined 
by various circumstances and conditions, and the direction 
of their channels does not alone depend upon the extent 
and tilt of the strata, but also on other forces Avhich have 
exercised a favoring or a retarding influence on their direct 
course. The stratification has its influence, indeed, but it 
is general rather than specific. Still, it is very largely 
felt when it happens to coincide in its main lines with the 
direction of the mountain range, but is comparatively in- 
significant when it does not. We have instances in the 
Alps where the axis of stratification coincides with that 
of the main chain, from south-southwest to north-north- 
east ; in the Jura, from southwest to northeast; and in 
the Scandinavian range, from south to north. 

The different geological formations found in mountain 
districts have a very important influence in determining 
the direction of rivers. Mountains do not generally con- 
sist of rocks of one kind of structure, but of several. 
What stratification is to mountains whose geological 
formation is the same throughout, the superposition of 



RIVERS MORE CLOSELY CONSIDERED. 153 

different kinds of rocks is to those of composite materials. 
Tlie layers may be divided into superior, inferior, and ad- 
jacent. These usually vary in respect to age, and may be 
traced in a regular geological seniority, as for example 
sandstone, gypsum, limestone, gray-wacke, and granite. 
These formations are either closely contiguous, or are sepa- 
rated merely by valleys, as for instance in the Carpathian 
chain, where the central granite knot is separated by valley 
plains from the more southern limestone chain ; an example 
of contiguity is found on the west spur of the same Car- 
pathian range. Wherever mountain systems of varied 
geological structure approach each other very closely, 
rivers seldom break their way through either one, but find 
their way along the roots of the mountains, till at last they 
come to a less confined place. Such river courses are 
often veiy large and deep ; for the mountain streams 
which meet and are hemmed in by the narrow pass be- 
tween the two contiguous ranges sweep all loose ob- 
structions before them, and not only leave their path clear, 
but continually deepen it. We find this in the Ural, the 
Isere, the Rhone, Aar, Inn, in all the long and winding 
Alpine valleys, and in the Ebro, fed by the parallel ridges 
of the Pyrenees. The circle of rivers which girds the 
central Carpathian knot is an illustration of what was said 
a moment since. ThePoprad, Dunayic, Arva, and Waagare 
found where the true Carpathian chain, which is granitic, is 
closely contiguous to subordinate ranges of limestone and 
gray-wacke. In any accurate map, the long, winding 
course between these two chains may be easily traced. 
Looking at the point where the Hartz Mountains and the 
Thuringian ridge touch at their roots, the groups are seen 
to be insulated, as it were, by the rivers which gird their 
bases. In the great streams of southern and southwestern 

20 



J 54 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

Asia, iOLT, the line of the water-courses can be traced along 
the narrow valleys which separate main from subordinate 
mountain chains ; the Terek, Kooban, Koor, Aras, Eu- 
phrates, Tigris, Indus, Ganges, and probably the Chinese 
rivers, are all examples of this. 

Some streams seem to be entirely independent of all 
these laws in forming their channels, and to have their 
direction assigned to them by the freaks of nature, such, 
for instance, as fissures in mountain chains and clefts, 
which remain to indicate ancient convulsions. 

The entire course of a river is divided into three dis- 
tinct and subordinate courses — the upper, middle, and 
lower. To these and their respective tributaries corre- 
spond the three grades of transition found on the banks, 
and which have already been alluded to. Not onl}^ the 
total amount of fall in the river bed, but also the angle 
of inchnation, and the whole complex of phenomena in 
the basin, are reciprocal to the threefold character of 
transition in almost every hydrographical system in the 
world. Still, the variety of relations which arise from the 
combination of different elements is so variable, that an 
almost infinite diversity arises in the characteristics of 
rivers, and these characteristics always vary, too, accord- 
ing as found in the upper, middle, or lower course. 

Upper Course of Rivers. 

This begins at the ridge of the water-shed, and extends 
to the limits where the river emerges fi'om the most rocky 
highlands. It depends for its existence upon the greater 
fall in the river bed there than lower down. At the upper 
course, therefore, rivers which may flow in exactly opposite 
directions are brought into direct neighborhood. The far- 
ther they advance fi'om the water-shed the more they re- 



UPPER COURSE OF RIVERS. 155 

cede from each other. In the High Forest south of the 
Carpathian chain, and in the Bory Morass north of it, the 
waters which flow into the Baltic and into the Black Seas 
spring from the ground side by side. The name given to 
the districts where the head- waters of large and naviga- 
ble rivers part is usually the French word portages, the 
English word transports being little used in that connec- 
tion, although all, the German Trageplatze and the Rus- 
sian Wolok, involve the ideeio^ carrying, of porterage, from 
the head- waters of one stream to those of another. The 
lowest parts of a water-shed, the passes of a high mount- 
ain range, for example, the intermediate vales of lower 
ones, and the most elevated plains in flat districts, are the 
most suitable for the purpose of canal building, to serve 
as a connecting link between the sources of divergent 
streams ; as, for instance, the canal which is proposed to 
connect the Baltic and the Black Seas by uniting the 
Yistula and Danube, the tributaries, the Poprad, Hernad, 
and Theiss being the channel of communication up to the 
mountains where a canal is to pass over the water-shed 
formed by the valleys of the Carpathian chain. Such a 
communication is the most available which can be made 
between the opposite sides of a mountain range. The 
practicability of constructing such canals depends very 
largely upon the degree of fall in the upper course of the 
connected rivers, as determined by the slope of the bed 
toward the horizon. The grade of most mountains' sides, 
which stand back to back, is unlike on the two sides : 
steep on the one, slight on the other. Upon this depends 
the greater or less wildness of the sti"eams flowing through 
their upper course. In the Ural chain the slope is steep on 
the eastern side, gradual on the western ; in the Caucasus, 
steep on the north, gradual on the south; in the Carpa* 



156 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

thian and the Alps, just the reverse — steep on the south, 
gradual on the north. The rate of fall varies; but, in 
general, it lies between an angle of 2° and an angle of 6°, 
taking the entire upper course into account. On the 
very steep north side of the Pyrenees, the fall is between 
3° and 4° ; on the south side of the Alps, from the sum- 
mits of Mont Rosa and Mont Blanc to the plains of Pied- 
mont, it is 3f °. It is far less in more unimportant ranges. 
And this angle, it should be remarked, is an average ; it is 
the resultant of a great number of special, short slopes, 
which vary from the perpendicularity of an occasional 
waterfall to the equally occasional tranquillity of a meadow- 
like flow. The incidental slopes are, of course, much 
greater than the average of all. A. grade of 15° is very 
steep ; it is the maximum that can be ascended by a beast 
of burden. A grade of 8° is the maximum for wheeled 
vehicles; all roads must be less sloping than this. To 
accomplish the ascent of 35°, a man on foot must have 
some assistance. A grade of 44° in the high peaks of 
Mexico and Peru, Humboldt found inaccessible ; only 
where the growth of trees and shrubs gave him an 
opportunity of planting his feet, could he climb where it 
was a little steeper than 44°. The Carpathians and the 
Pyrenees, on account of their steepness and their scanty 
verdure, are very difficult to ascend. The Alps are much 
more easily climbed than the mountains just mentioned, in 
consequence of their abundant growth of turf and under- 
growth. The richest Alpine meadows of Switzerland 
have an inclination not exceeding 20° ; at a greater slope 
the vegetation becomes more sparse. The grade on which 
it is possible for earth to cling, Lehman fixes at 45°, and 
considers that the normal slope, because at a greater angle, 
rain glances or ricochets. But Lehman is not right in 



■UPPER COURSE OF RIVERS. 157 

assigning this as the normal slope possible for earth to 
cling and vegetation to grow, for on the Alps soil ad- 
heres and plants get a footing at a much steeper angle 
than 45° ; in fact, the modifications in the appearance of 
the Alps, by the growth of trees clinging to steeper 
slopes than this, are very marked. From the highest 
possible grade where vegetation can get a footing, we 
advance to the sheer perpendicular. 

The upper course of rivers is characterized rather by 
plunges than by equable flowing, and determines its way 
by a series of leaps through zigzag cuts and various ra- 
vines. It traverses bowl-shaped hollows and narrow de- 
files, and makes its way even through mountain lakes, 
depositing in them its residuum of sand and gravel 
which it has caught up and swept along. In its wild 
plunges it draws into its body considerable air, which ap- 
pears as bubbles, and makes it a white mass of foam. 
By-and-by it reaches more level ground, becomes clear as 
crystal, and assumes a rich emerald green, or a deep blue. 
It is unnavigable, wild, romantic, and is always found in 
mountain districts. 

The brawling brooks of Salzburg, of the Pyrenees, and 
of Sweden and Norway, all partake of this character. 
Those of the Pyrenees have a fall of an inch in every 
foot, and in some places cataracts of two or three feet. 
The same is observable in the Alps, where the continual 
stir of the water mixes in air enough to turn all into a 
mass of silvery-white foam. The Carpathian waters are 
the same before they reach the high plateaus lying at their 
feet. The Alpine lakes, too, which lie within the upper 
course of the rivers which feed them, have a considerable 
fall ; Lago Maggiore, for instance, has a descent of 52 feet 
between Magadino and Arena. 




158 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

In all the most marked mountain systems of Europe, 
tlie upper course of the rivers is espeeialh^ prominent. 
Northern Europe is characterized by the fact that its 
streams have, throughout the most of their length, the pecu- 
liarities of the upper course — whether observed in north- 
ern Russia, in all Sweden, Norway, and Scotland. 

With the exit of the river from the mountain district, 
all these relations are changed, and a new character 
begins. 

The Middle Course. 

Far more moderate is the descent after the river emerges 
from the mountain region, or where it has never experi- 
enced the wild turbulence of the upper course, as is the 
case in most of the rivers of eastern Europe. In the middle 
course the angle of inclination is much modified. The 
upper Main has a fall of 342 feet within three miles after 
leaving Fichtel Mountains. The descent of most of the 
rivers of central Germany is much less than this. The 
Neckar, whose sources lie 2084 feet above the sea, in 
passing to Heilbronn, which is 450 feet above the sea, 
falls at the rate of about an inch to every 32 feet. The 
fall of the Saale, after leaving the Fichtel range, is about 
20 feet to the mile ; that of Naab, about 14 ; that of the 
Eger, less; and that of the upper Oder, in Silesia, still 
less. More gradual yet is the slope of the Volga bed, 
which falls but 1400 in about 2050 miles, considerably 
less than a foot to a mile; and in its lower course its in- 
clination must be still less 

The effects of the current must necessarily be very dif- 
ferent from those observable under the influence of the 
dashing and wayward upper course. 

The name River Bed is given to the entire breadth of 
the hollow which holds the river, and which varies in 



MIDDLE COURSE OP RIVERS. 159 

width according to the stage of the water, especially in 
large streams like the great rivers of America. The Mis- 
sissippi is a mile wide at JSTatchez at low water, at high 
water almost thirty. The Orinoco, at St. Thomas, is three 
miles wide at low water, at high water it is over seventy. 
In the Volga and the Danube the stage of water makes 
great differences in the width of the river bed. In summer 
the depth and breadth are, as a rule, less than in winter. 

The Channel differs from the river bed ; it is the 
part of the river bed which gives life and motion to the 
w^iole current. In the upper course the channel and the 
river bed generally coincide; in the middle and lower 
courses, on the contrary, the channel occupies but a very 
small share of the whole bed, but yet it determines the 
direction, amount of fall, and the rapidity of the stream. 
It lies usually not in the middle of the river bed, but on 
one side ; it passes, however, from bank to bank ; it is in- 
dicated by the movement of ships, which always follow it, 
and it lies uniformly adjacent to the boldest shore. It 
widens the whole river bed toward one side, and not to- 
ward both ; and so streams which traverse great plains, 
like the great Hungarian one, for instance, do not now run 
through the middle, but course along at the base of the 
marginal bluffs. In all such cases, it will be found that 
the channel hugs the boldest side of the bed. All the 
four Carpathian rivers, as they wind out between the 
main range and the subordinate ranges, have their steep- 
est shore, not on the side of the loftiest, but on the side 
of the boldest mountains, and these are the ones of the 
subordinate range. So, in the plains which lie between 
the Swiss Alps and the Jura, the bold sides of the river 
bed lie on the side of the bolder though less important 
chain, and not on the side of the Alpine meadows. The 



16C COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

bold banks of the Ebro are not on tbe side of the Pyre- 
nees and their plains, but on the south side. All the 
streams of South and Middle Russia have, therefore, on 
the east side, their low banks, on the west the bold ones ; 
and this, because the most extensive plains lie on the 
eastern side. 

In the more level tracts the windings of rivers are very 
much increased in magnitude. These windings check the 
current. The serpentine course is characteristic of rivers 
in their middle course, and it is repeated, though on a 
small scale, in every meadow brook. The serpentine 
course of rivers gives rise to countless islands and inter- 
vals: as, for example, between Bale and the Rhinegau, 
but, with very few exceptions, no lakes, the characteristic 
feature of the upper course of rivers. But the broad 
meadow lands of the middle course very often indicate in 
the clearest manner that they were once lakes of con- 
siderable magnitude, which have subsided and left their 
basin a dry plain. An example may be found in the 
meadow laud of the Rhine, from Bale to Bastberg, be- 
low Strasbourg, and again from Ladenburg, in the Palati- 
nate, to Bingen. So on the Danube, from Ulm to Passau, 
Lintz, and Kloster Newburg, and again from Pesth to Be- 
loro Semlin, as far, in fact, as the narrows at Orsova. The 
same feature is met in the middle course of the Volga, 
from Tver eastward to the west Ural, and southward to 
Saratov and Kamishin, where it breaks through the 
Obstshei-Syrtis, which was, doubtless, once the barrier of 
a great inland lake. In these basins, now dry, there is a 
surprising uniformity of characteristics wherever on the 
globe they occur. They differ but little, whether found in 
the middle course of the Ganges, the Indus, the Euphrates, 
or the American rivers. The still, incomplete stream of 



MIDDLE COURSE OE RIVERS. 161 

tile St. Lawrence shows us, even in the present, what the 
ancient conditions were before they solved the problem o^ 
their complete development. There, a row of such lakes 
as formerly existed in the now fruitful plains of the mid- 
dle Rhine, the middle Danube, and central Russia, are the 
five great Canadian lakes. They still constitute the mid- 
dle course of the I'iver, and one pours itself directly into 
another, either over a gentle slope of land, or in a great 
cataract and rapids, such as we do not observe in the 
middle course of other streams, which are not, like the 
St. Lawrence, incomplete. Only when waterfalls disap- 
pear can the inclination of rivers become a gradual one. 
The uniformity of the grade of their channel is, therefore, 
a sign that they have attained to a complete development. 
In such, slight rapids remain, instead of the ancient 
cataracts. The existence of those primeval falls we find 
in all rivers, even in the Rhine and Danube. The rounded 
faces of the rocks which once were the barriers to the 
rivers' course, and the debris once swept down from the 
mountains and deposited over the bottom of the ancient 
lakes, show this. 

The strongest instance of cataracts, resembling the an- 
cient ones which connected the lakes of nearly all the 
great rivers of the globe, is seen in the fall of Niagara. 
That cataract is an epitome of the falls of all other 
streams. The Niagara River conducts the water of Lake 
Erie, by a channel 33 miles long, to Lake Ontario, 300 feet 
below it. At the Great Fall the river plunges about 150 
feet into a chasm which it has hollowed out from the soft 
stone between the two lakes. The cataract was formerly 
seven miles below its present location, and has been ob- 
served to be steadily working backward since its discovf ry. 
In the distant future it will, doubtless, wholly disappear, as 
0* 21 



162 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

all Others have done. For the Niagara is merely a strik- 
ing instance of a principle once universal, but which 
merely worked itself out on a smaller scale. The more 
fragments of rock and mountain debris were swept along, 
the sooner were the primitive falls rent away by the wash 
and the percussion, and the development of the middle 
course completed. 

The places of transition which lie between the higher 
dry basins and the lower ones are still to be traced in al- 
most all rivers; not by great waterfalls, which belong only 
to the upper course, but by simple rapids. They are more 
or less characterized by naiTOws, with steep, rocky banks, 
where, doubtless, cataracts existed in the primitive times. 
They are recognizable by this feature, that they are uni- 
formly alike, and distribute their force equally on both 
sides of the river. Examples may be found on both sides 
of the Rhine, in the narrows between Bingen and Bacha- 
rach ; on the Elbe, from Tetsheu to Shandau, Dresden, 
and Meissen. In these places the rivers have a very 
tortuous course, and there are whirls and rapids (rapides, 
sauts, of the French; saltos, randales, of the Spanish; 
schewerin of the Russians) which impede navigation. In 
these localities the entire aspect of nature is changed, and 
the landscape becomes exceedingly beautiful. Here we 
find ancient narrow roadways ; here are places of great 
historic interest, and of great interest to the naturalist, as- 
suredly not of accidental origin, but in close connection 
with the development of the river bed, and in close 
analogy with all places of transition from highland to 
lowland. 

We may, perhaps, mark these features in all the rivers 
of the earth. A knowledge of them is essential to under- 
stand thoroughly the natural development of a river sys- 



LOWER COURSE OF RIVERS. 163 

tern in its true parts ; unfortunately, they have as yet been 
too little observed and described. Amo.ig European 
rivers they are found in the Guadiana, at the Saltos de 
Lobo ; in the Douro, at the rapids below Torre de Mon- 
corvo; in the Ebro, at Sastago, below Saragossa; in the 
Rhone, the rapids below Lyons, between the granite banks 
of Pierre Encise ; in Loire, by Iguerando, below Koanne ; 
in the Rhine, below Strasbourg, and at the narrows at 
Bingen, near St. Goar and Andernach ; in the Weser, at 
the Porta Westphalica ; in the Danube, at Grein, at Klos- 
ter Newburg, and at Yachtali, Drenir Kapi, (Iron Gate,) 
and Orsova ; and in the Dnieper, the thirteen waterfalls 
below Yekaterinslav. The same features are repeated in 
all the other streams of Europe and the remaining conti- 
nents. More close investigation of them will lead to im- 
portant results, concerning the structure of the earth in 
the regions intermediate between plateaus and lowlands. 

As a high grade, great cataracts, sharp and bold cliffs, 
and mountain lakes characterize the upper course of 
streams, so rapids, dry lake basins, and a meandering 
channel characterize their middle course. Below the 
lowest rapids are found the level plains or lowlands 
which give rivers their third characteristic. 

Lower Course. 

As soon as the rivers break through the lowest range 
of hills which once beset their course, they deposit the 
debris which they bear with them, and begin the forma- 
tion of diluvial plains. We find in the soil of all level 
places along the middle, as well as the. lower course of 
rivers, traces of the same kinds of rock and minerals, 
which characterize the mountains where they rise. The 
rate of fall in the lower course of rivers is so slight as to 



164 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

be almost imperceptible. Relatively, it is the greatest in 
the Volga ; from Kamishin to the Caspian the descent is 
more than 150 feet, although the distance is less than 500 
miles. The Senegal, from Podor to the sea, a distance of 
about 200 miles, falls only about 2^ feet; the Amazon, 
within about the same distance, falls only 10| feet, or about 
an inch to the mile. In such rivers, therefore, the tide can 
flow a very long way inland. 

This gives rise to a great conflict of forces — the pressure 
of the stream in its natural flow, heightened at the ap- 
propriate season by the annual inundation, and the back- 
ward pressure of the tidal wave. Before these forces 
come into equilibrium, the river bed is constantly chang- 
ing. The river proper seeks this equilibrium by a parting 
of its channel, dividing into two mouths, as in the Nile, 
or into moi'e than one, as in the Rhine and Danube, or 
several (about 65) in the Volga. The momentum of the 
stream, the resistance of the tide, and the consequent slow 
speed of the current promote the fall of deposits along the 
lower course of rivers. Below the surface the result of 
these deposits is found in sand banks or bars ; above the 
surface, as low, marshy land, the deltas, subject to fre- 
quent inundation. We see this in the Rhine, the Nile, 
the Euphrates, the Indus, the Ganges, the Mississippi — 
in all, about fourteen of the first-class rivers of the globe. 
The contrary feature, single, broad mouths not yet filled 
up by alluvial deposits, negative deltas, or deep ocean in- 
lets, can be observed in nine othei'S of the largest rivers — 
the Obi, Yenisei, St. Lawrence, Columbia, La Plata — 
mostly found, however, in the north of the earth, where 
there is very little of the more loose and fruitful soil which 
more southern rivers bear onward from the mountains 
where they rise. 



LOWER COURSE OF RIVERS. 165 

Another peculiarity of the lower course is seen in the 
extraordinary changes in the river bed — the shifting of the 
channel from one side to the other. This is the natural 
result of the very light and movable character of the de- 
posits brought down from above, and the strong pressure 
of the current, which, though slow, has great momentum. 
In the lower course of the Ganges, Indus, Euphrates, Nile, 
Rhine, and Po, these changes can be traced as a matter 
of history, -and, in the lapse of centuries, have had great in- 
fluence on the formation of the great plains of those 
rivers' mouths and on the people living there. With the 
lower course begins the regular yearly inundations, which 
cover vast districts in tropical countries ; and to these 
inundations may be attributed the gradual raising of the 
level of the plains covered by them. Hence arose Hero- 
dotus' descriptive phrase rano-iun ipyaruoi, (prolific rivers.) 
The great fruitfulness of these lowlands is well known. 
The rich alluvial deposits have made Bengal, Babylonia, 
Egypt, Lombardy, Holland, and the Netherlands the 
granaries of all neighboring countries. 

In proportion as the mouth of great rivers resembles an 
inland sea, having a strongly marked tidal flow in sympa- 
thy with the ocean, does the whole nature of the lower 
course vary. The rivers whose mouths are turned to the 
east and south are those which are exposed to the strong- 
est and the highest ocean waves. Such are Chinese, In- 
dian, and South American rivers, which sometimes show 
the result of this, 500 miles inland. The tide extending 
so far into the interior facilitates navigation very much, 
and transforms the lowlands along tlicir margin into dis- 
tricts, which seem transitional between true continent and 
oceanic islands. All the mouths of first-class rivers which 
open toward the north and west arc less deeply affected 



I Ob COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

by the entrance of the sea waves. To these belong most 
of the European streams. Exceptional to both of these 
classes are the three rivers, the Nile, Danube, and Volga, 
whose direction is not toward the ocean, but toward the 
center of the Old World. They form a triad, not of 
oceanic, but of continental streams ; in them there is no 
ebb and flood. Their lower course and mouths must, 
therefore, display different relations from those of any 
other of the great rivers of the globe. 

It was early remarked that not all streams, when they 
reach the sea, flow at once into it, but come to a stand- 
still. It is so with the Thames, and with most of the 
North American rivers. The ocean sometimes throws 
a tidal wave twenty to thirty feet high up their channel, 
and dams their flow. Rivers vary exceedingly in their 
relations to this high barrier. The Chinese streams are 
sometimes raised forty feet by it above their normal level. 
This gives rise to a salt oceanic river, so to speak. It is 
the same with the Thames at London. At high tide the 
surface is salt, while the water at the bottom is fresh. 
The struggle with the downward current and the upward 
current is very often visible. It is so in the Orinoco, the 
Ganges, in the Chinese rivers; most of all, in the St. 
Lawrence. 

In all the continents there are many small rivers and rivu- 
lets which have no normal mouths ; which lose themselves 
in the earth before they reach the sea. Sometimes they 
pursue a subterranean course, and emerge again, though 
usually with a changed name. Among the best-known 
of such instances is the Perte du Rhone, below Geneva, 
where the river flows for a little way directly beneath a 
spur of the Jura Mountains. In like manner, the Meuse, 
which loses itself in the earth at Bazoilles, in the Yosges 



LOWER COURSE OP RIVERS. 167 

Mountains, west of Nancy, flows in a subterranean bed 
as far as Noncourt, nine miles distant, and then emerges. 
The phenomenon is common among the Jura, and in the 
limestone cliffs which feed the Drave and Save. The 
tourist meets almost hourly there some brook or little 
river disappearing beneath the ground. On the high 
Asiatic plateau of Gobi, 68 rivers are known, which dis- 
appear in a similar manner ; in the north of Thibet there 
are 115 such. They are common, also, in the Chinese 
province of Yun-nan, on the Persian highland, and on the 
plateau of the Bechuanas, in South Africa. In South 
America, between the Andes and the La Plata, there are 
twelve lakes without effluents, the greatest being Lake Ti- 
ticaca. In Central America, there is the Lake of Mexico. 

The division of the whole length of a river into the 
three courses — the upper, middle, and lower — and the pro- 
portionate share which each of these bears to the whole, 
depends upon the height at which the source stands above 
the mouth. The greater or less extent of the transition 
grades, and the greater or less extent of navigable waters, 
also depend on the same. The upper course has, as a 
general rule, too many hinderances to be very valuable for 
navigation ; it is, at best, adapted only to boats. The 
more united and deeper middle course offers facilities for 
vessels of considerable draught ; yet the frequent sunken 
rocks and eddies and rapids are a great impediment to navi- 
gation. We find it so in the Rhine, below the Falls of 
Schaffhausen, as far as Bale; and in its middle course, at 
Bingen and St. Goar ; in the Danube, also, at Grein and 
Orsova. 

The lower course, on the other hand, opens like a broad 
fresh-water sea, tiiat sometimes allows large ships to sail 
50, 200, and even 500 miles inland. These maritime 



168 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY, 

streams ought to be discriminated from others ; the 
Chinese call them "sons of the ocean." 

The proportions in the length of the upper, middle, and 
lower course of rivers are exceedingly variable ; and equally 
variable of course are the transition lands apportioned to 
each, and forming its natural supplement. The upper 
course of the Volga is very short, the middle very long, 
and the. lower ver}'^ short. The same relative proportions, 
though with very different dimensions, are found in the Vis- 
tula, the Ganges, the Euphrates, and the Mississippi. The 
upper course of the Rhine, on the contrary, is very long, 
through all Switzerland to Bale ; the middle also very long, 
to Cologne ; the lower, very short, to Rotterdam and the sea. 
It is the same with the Nile, the Danube, and the Indus. 
In the Marafion or Amazon the upper course is very 
short, the middle and lower very long. In the Chinese 
rivers Hoang-ho and Yang-tse-Kiang all the three courses 
are relatively long. 

The length of the middle and lower courses, although 
important conditions of navigation, are not the only ones. 
Others are not to be overlooked, — the amount of water, 
depth of channel, and the like. These, however, are not 
capable of being generalized under any law, but depend 
upon the individual characteristics of each stream. Every 
river needs, for an exhaustive account of its features, its 
own monograph. 

There remains but one impoi'tant point to be considered 
■ — one which has exerted a very great influence on the di- 
versity of structure in all river systems, controlling the 
area of their drainage, their volume of water, their effect 
on human culture, and on the ethnographic character of 
the people dwelling on their banks, it is the distance 
from the source to the mouth in direct distance compared 



LOWER COURSE OF RIVERS. 169 

with that following the tortuous course of the stream. 
The two lines almost never coincide ; they generally lie 
far apart. And the less they approach to coincidence, the 
greater becomes the area of the river basin ; the more 
mimerous and valuable the tributaries to the main course, 
the greater the volume of the stream and the more varied 
and extensive its influence. 

One or two examples drawn from European rivers will 
more fully explain this point, to which Buache has already 
called attention in his "Parallele des fleuves." 

The mouth of the Yolga is 982 miles distant from the 
source, in an air-line. The distance, including all the 
curves of the stream, is 2012 miles, the bendings adding 
1028 miles to the direct course. By this doubling of the 
shortest possible distance, the area drained by it is swollen 
to the enormous size of 65t,000 square miles. The direct 
course lies in a diagonal direction from northwest to south- 
east; but the real direction is a changing one. First, it 
flows a short distance from north to south, then in its 
middle course it has a double direction ; first eastward, 
toward the Ural chain, then to the south, and lastly, in 
its lower course, to the southeast. Through this varied 
course it receives tributaries from very remote sources, and 
waters a country altogether greater than would be possi- 
ble if the Volga's course were direct from the source to 
the mouth. Its basin becomes so large as to embrace a 
fifth of Europe, and the stream becomes one of the longest 
and most available for navigation in the continent. The 
vastness of the volume of water and the wandering course 
have both contributed to the value of the Volga lowlands. 

The exact contrast to the Volga is found in the Dniester. 
In the Volga there is a maximum of windings ; in the 
Dniester there is a minimum. The air-line distance of 
P 22 



ITO COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

the mouth of the Dniester from the source is 408 miles; 
the distance, including all the bends, is 450 miles ; the loss 
in winding is, therefore, but about 42 miles. The theoreti- 
cal course of the Dniester, le. measured by an air-line, 
would coincide very nearly with its actual course. There 
cannot be, therefore, any distant springs Avhose waters 
flow into its channel ; its basin is one of the most con- 
tracted in the world in consequence of its directness; and 
a small belt, embracing but 32,850 square miles, compre- 
hends the entire district that it drains, freed from all 
those tributaries which make the Volga basin so im- 
portant. 

The Dnieper, its eastern neighbor, is 630 miles in direct 
distance from the source to the mouth, but 1000 with all 
its windings; leaving StO miles as the extraneous shore, 
which adds to the value of the basin, and contributes to 
the 219,000 square miles which it drains. 

The same contrast is seen elsewhere, though not on so 
extended a scale. It is to be found in the Vistula, Oder, 
Elbe, Weser, Rhine, and Danube. These rivers give shape 
to the transition terraces between broad eastern Europe 
and the more contracted western portions of the conti- 
nent ; their dimensions are, therefore, on a less extensive 
scale than in the great Russian streams. Still, the dif- 
ferences in them are worthy of notice. 

In the Vistula, the direct distance from the source to 
the mouth is 329 miles, and the real distance is 611 miles ; 
the windings comprise, therefore, 280 miles, or about two- 
thirds of the air-line from extreme to extreme. It becomes 
able to receive a large number of tributaries, and its basin 
is enlarged to an area of ^8,402 square miles, becoming 
one of the best-watered and most fruitful on the globe. 

In the Oder, the direct distance from the source to the 



LOWER COURSE OE RIVERS. ITi 

mouth is about the same as in the Vistula. But while 
the latter frequently changes its course, running first 
northward, then eastward to the Sau, then northward 
again to the Bug, then westward to the Drewenz, and lastly 
northward, and so gains a very large basin of drainage, the 
former is unvarying in its course from southeast to north- 
west; so that the direct line drawn from extreme to ex- 
treme, as the bird flies, is nearly coincident with the actual 
course of the river. The windings do not, at most, com- 
prise one-third of the whole length of the stream, and the 
basin drained by its tributaries is at least a third less than 
that of the Vistula, and is proportionately less valuable to 
the interests of the world. 

In the Elbe the air-line length is 394 miles, greater 
therefore, than that of the Vistula or the Oder ; its length, 
including its windings, is about the same as that of the 
Vistula. The area of its basin lies therefore between 
the two, 61,320 square miles; it is more valuable, there- 
fore, than that of the Oder, and less valuable than that of 
the Vistula. 

Still less striking in this respect are the Weser and the 
Ems ; but the Rhine assumes a prominence, in relation to 
the value of its basin, greater than even the Vistula. The 
direct distance from the source of the Rhine to its mouth is 
423 miles, the actual distance tOS miles; the windings 
comprise, therefore, more than two-thirds of the entire 
length of the stream. The number of tributaries is un- 
commonly large, the area drained is increased about 9855 
miles beyond that of the Vistula ; and the entire basin 
(88,25t square miles) is one which has been of the great- 
est import in the history of all central Europe. 

All the rivers and all the terrace lands of the globe ex- 
hibit the same relation which we have been briefly indi- 



112 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

eating ill a few European ones ; in some of the great 
rivers of the world they are to be traced on a scale of 
grandeur of which in those which have been touched 
upon scarcely a suggestion is given. 

But not in this feature, added to what has been already 
said, do we exhaust the fruitful subject of Rivers, and the 
terrace systems which accompany them from their source 
to the sea. The diversity of phenomena traceable in them 
had hid their unity from geographers, and prevented their 
tracing general principles in so manifold details. The dry, 
linear representations on most of our maps have blinded the 
eye to the living and organic relations which river systems 
enter into, and through which they exert a great influence. 
They must be examined singly ; they must be studied in 
their real character and individuality, and each must have 
its own monograph, before we can fully know the value of 
river systems to the world. 

We have now to touch upon one or two points omitted, 
thus far, in our discussion of the hydrography of the con- 
tinents. 

The stream is a unit; most streams have a single chan- 
nel as the last goal of their descent. Others may have dou- 
ble channels, which contend with each other for the supe- 
riority. If they are double only for a part of the whole 
length of the river, and in the upper or middle course flow 
together, and form one main channel, they can be called 
twin head- streams. We have an example in the Danube 
and Inn, which are equally long and equally large. Other 
instances are the Rhone and the Saone, the Volga and 
Kama, the Missouri and Mississippi, the Blue and White 
Nile, the Ganga and Jumna. Others have triple head- 
sti'eams ; as, for example, the Hither, Middle, and Farther 
Rhine ; the Ucayale, Huallaga, and Maranon, which 



LOWER COURSE OF RIVERS. 1T3 

combine in the middle course to form the Amazon. There 
may be even five head-streams, as in the Indus. Often it 
is only through the usage of speech, often through ancient 
and exploded errors, that the name of one of the head- 
streams is given to the whole river. 

If the double channels continue through the whole 
length of the river system, they belong to a different cate- 
gory ; they become true double systems, and have a double 
influence on the development of the whole range of terraces 
from source to base. From their meeting in a common ' 
bay or gulf at the mouth, they may be called sister- 
streams ; and, from the territory which they inclose between 
them, the Mesopotamia, they may be called Mesopotamic 
streams. Between such double streams some of the 
greatest States of Asia lie. Universally known, on ac- 
count of their influence on Asiatic culture, are the Eu- 
phrates and Tigris uniting in the Persian Gulf, Ganges 
and Brahmapootra uniting in the Bay of Bengal, Gihon 
and Sihon in the Sea of Aral, Hoang-ho and Yang-tse- 
Kiang encompassing the Central Flowery Country of the 
Chinese Empire, and meeting in a common delta. These 
double streams are mostly met in Asia, and they have ex- 
ercised a great influence on the whole growth of oriental 
civilization. 

In South America there is yet another and more com- 
plex form yet of river system. The Amazon is connected 
with the Orinoco by means of the little cross-river Cassi- 
quiare. By this connection the middle course of both 
rivers is made more available to navigation than it would 
otherwise have been. Such cross-streams may be found, 
though on a smaller scale, in other continents; in Africa, 
for example, between the Senegal and the Rio Grande 
There a network is made between the parallel rivers, but 
p* 



174 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

it is available for navigation only in the wet seasons. In 
Central Africa there seems to be a similar phenomenon be- 
tween the eastern tributaries of Lake Tchad and the 
western tributaries of the Bahr el Abiad or White Nile, 
though this rests on the authority of the Arabs. In In- 
dia there appears to be a similar connection between the 
middle course of the Indus and the Jumna, and so the 
Ganges, by the mediation of the Sarasvati or Histara and 
the Gharghara. There may have been the same in Cen- 
tral China, between the Hoang-ho and the Kiang, where 
the Imperial Canal now runs ; and a similar feature may 
be found in the Lithuanian marshes, connecting the Vis- 
tula and Dnieper river systems, through the mediation of 
the Bug and the Przypec. The skill of man has, in many 
places, accomplished the same end by the construction of 
canals. 

Although all rivers, in the course of their development, 
follow the universal law which leads them from their 
source, however high, to the sea, yet there is, even in their 
descent, scope for exceedingly varied phenomena. It is 
not necessary that everywhere a strongly-marked line of 
water-shed should exist, but often, as in all the more level 
plateaus, there are broad, neutral plains which perform 
the function of water-sheds, though possessing no decisive 
character. It is so through a great part of Central Asia, 
in the low plains of Australia, probably in a large part of 
Africa, and so markedly in America, that all lines of 
water-shed wholly disappear, and the rivers flow con- 
fusedly together, without any system, and in obedience to 
no law. 

Some rivers come down the sides of high mountains in 
(orrents, then course around in a long, winding course, 
turning out for all obstacles, and at last find the sea. 



LOWER COURSE OP RIVERS. 175 

Others are entirely unlike them. The Ganges flows from 
the south side of the Himalaya Mountains, and courses 
along their base, following the direction of the chain in a 
southeasterly direction, till it reaches the Bay of Bengal. 
The Indus springs from the north side of the Himalaya, 
flows northwest over the plateau of Little Thibet as far 
as Iskardo, then breaks through the whole chain to pour 
itself out upon the lowlands of India, the Punjaub, and 
Mooltan. Dashing its way through the most formidable 
barriers, it is entirely unlike the gentle Ganges, which 
pursues its tranquil course through the plains, meeting no 
barrier in its entire length. The Indus, so long as it re- 
mains north of the Himalaya, traverses a plateau 10,000 
feet above the sea; while the Ganges, even at Delhi, is but 
1000 feet above the sea. Both rivers, although repre- 
sented in precisely the same way upon the maps, have an 
entirely different physical character. 

The same difference in structure occurs in the streams 
of other continents, and even in those of Central Europe, 
though on a less colossal scale. There are, therefore, 
classes of rivers, and they ought to be just as sharply dis- 
criminated as the classes in botany and zoology. 

Plateau streams, such as the Danube, as far as the 
Lower Austrian and Hungarian plains, and the Saone, 
down to its confluence with the Rhone, pass through high, 
uniform plains with little fall. They are genuine mount- 
ain followers, springing from the verge of the chain and 
crossing along its base, the Saone taking the west side of 
the Alps, as the Danube does the northern, and the Po the 
southern. 

The rivers which force their way through mountain 
ranges form a second class. The Rhine, a free child of 
the Alps, from its source to the sea, breaks through all 



1T6 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

tlie ranges up to the Jura ; then it forces a path through 
all the mountains of Central Germany, till it comes to its 
lower course. It may, therefore, be classified with the 
Indus. It leaves the Alps suddenly at Bale, and opens a 
new and romantic way through no insignificant obstacle, 
and is everywhere a conqueror. That is the peculiarity 
of the Rhine. 

Two streams of analogous nature, though less marked 
in their characteristics, are the Elbe and the Weser. But 
these both rise, not among the Alps, but amid the German 
mountains. They lack, therefore, the exceedingly romantic 
character of Alpine rivers ; but they do not lack in pic- 
turesque scenery, and this they owe to the obstacles which 
they pass. The Elbe has broken its way from the Bohe- 
mian ridge through the so-called Saxon-Switzerland, as 
far as Meissen, and the Weser from the fissures of the 
Werra and the Fulda to the Porta Westphalica. The 
Elbe and the Weser make, with the Rhine, the triad of 
Central European rivers, which have broken a pathway 
for themselves through mountains which impeded their 
course. 

A third class of rivers are those which encounter no 
obstacles, and flow in a placid stream from the source to 
the mouth. They extend in Europe from the Vistula to 
the Ems, including the Oder and excluding the Weser and 
Elbe, and from the Rhine along the whole Atlantic coast 
of France, embracing the Seine, Loire, Garonne, and the 
Adour — all of these having, in greater or less degree, the 
same hydrographical character. 

From these can be still further discriminated the subor- 
dinate coast rivers. 

To a fourth class belong all those tributary streams, of 
whatever size or length, which agree in possessing no 



REVIEW. 177 

independent character, and do not pour their waters into 
the sea through their own mouths. 

The application of this system of classification can be 
applied to the streams and their accompanying terrace 
lands in the other continents. But these observations may 
suffice to indicate the general principles which we would 
apply to the study of rivers, and leave to the student their 
further application. 

Review. 

The great typical forms already considered, highland, 
plateau, mountain, lowland, terrace, and river, which all 
claim so large a share of attention in studying their physi- 
cal characteristics, are no less worthy of careful attention, 
inconsequence of their influence on human culture. Our 
account would not be complete without devoting a few 
pages to the consideration of the manner in which nature 
and history have reacted on each other. 

The most elevated highlands, the loftiest plateaus, uni- 
form in their aspect, immense in their extent, isolated, 
without trees, having the thin soil characteristic of steppes, 
and useful only for grazing, are the home of the primitive 
nomadic races. Without forests and without shelter, with- 
out valleys and without water-courses, with sandy and 
rocky soil, covered with a scanty vegetation, they serve 
only to supply food for the gregarious animals which follow 
man, and to furnish a home to wandering tribes of herds- 
men. Instances are found in Central Asia, in Toorkistan 
and Persia, in Central Africa, including the Galla tribes 
and the Abyssinians. So, too, among the high plateaus 
of America, the home of the primitive Aztecs. From 
such places came the first movements of emigration ; from 
the high plateaus of Central Asia came the wandering 
23 



178 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

Persians, Huns, Mongolians, and Turks ; and the same 
course of emigration was witnessed among the negro 
tribes of Central Africa, proceeding from the Galla tribes. 
The lower highlands, less colossal in size, of more moderate 
height, and of more genial temperature, have at all times 
reached a certain low stage of culture, after giving a home 
to the nomads from the higher plateau ; but have never 
developed that culture to any considerable extent. We 
find examples of this in the high terraces of Bootan, the 
Deccan, and Persia; in Africa, among the Atlas mount- 
ains ; in Abyssinia, in the ancient Greek Arcadia, in 
Castile, in Arvernia, (Auvergne,) in Gallia, in Hesse, in 
the Eifel, and on the Valdai hills. 

In the exceedingly complex, subdivided, and romantic 
mountain districts of the globe, the races have attained, 
by virtue of the variety of their resources and the energy 
of their stock, to the highest results of civilization, and 
have manifested the most independent and progressive 
spirit. In such regions, hunting, working in wood, the 
settled life of shepherds, working in metals, agriculture on 
such terrace lands as those of Nepaul, Cashmere, Pales- 
tine, the Lebanon, Apeimine, and other ranges, fruit cul- 
ture, tilling vineyards, the cultivation of all kinds of in- 
dustry, as in Central Germany and in most regions of the 
temperate zone, develop most thoroughly and speedily the 
culture of a people. In such occupations men learn to 
lean more on each other, and grow into that diversity of 
occupation and division of labor, which are the latest re- 
sults of civilization. The Zend, the Sanscrit, and the Per- 
sian nations which people the fertile tracts at the base of the 
Himalaya Mountains, from Maghada, Lahore, Nepaul, and 
Cashmere, as far as Persepolis and Hamadan, Susa and 
Shiraz, the inhabitants of the hill country of Palestine and 



REVIEW. 179 

Syria, those of the Tehama range of mountains in Ara- 
bia, those in the moderately elevated meadows of Gondar, 
as well as those in all the European Alpine lands, Switzer- 
land, Tyrol, Styria, as well as the inhabitants of the mount- 
ain region of Peru and Mexico, all attain to an early and 
considerably advanced state of civilization. Other nations 
have found in mountains asylums in time of danger — the 
Tsherkeses and Ossetes among the Caucasus, for instance, 
the Basques among the Pyrenees, and the Grorals among 
the Cai-pathians. 

The lowlands, as soon as the water had left them enough 
to make them habitable, have become, from the first, the 
abodes of a teeming population ; and there has been the 
same blending of races in the most ancient as in the most 
recently settled, in China as in Texas, and, in truth, all 
North America. Often these inroads of population have 
been a source of injury, as has been the case in the north- 
ern Siberian plains, where the Finnish tribes have made 
their homes, and in the waste of Sahara, where the Bar- 
bary tribes, the Bedouins, the Tibboos, and the Tuaricks 
have made their retreat. 

On the fruitful terraces, along the middle course of 
rivers, the earliest fixed habitations and ripened culture 
have been attained. Through the traditional handing 
down of past results, and by the habits of peace, their 
inhabitants have more thoroughly subjected nature and 
advanced to a higher state of civilization than the dwellers 
in the interior, away from the rivers. It has been the 
same, in a great measure, with the lower course, as, for 
instance, in Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, and Bengal ; and 
in Europe, in Lombardy, Holland, and the Netherlands, 
where, to the efforts to recover land from the sea, have been 
added fishing and commerce. On such fruitful tracts as 



ISO COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

the mouths and middle courses of rivers water, nations 
could find a permanent home, &<nd pass quickly to all 
liberal and refining arts and occupations. This is clear, 
from the instances of the eminent monarchies of the East, 
Meroe, Thebes, Memphis, Babylon, Nineveh, Bagdad, and 
Mosul. So, too, on the Indus and Ganges, in the do- 
mains of Taxila, Maghada, Benares ; and later in the great 
empire, whose centers were Agra and Delhi. China has 
arrived at its highest civilization in the fertile district be- 
tween its two greatest rivers. Greece and Rome are 
marked exceptions. Their progress they owe, not to great 
river basins, but to their peninsular form in the middle of 
the coast of a delightful sea, full of islands and surrounded 
by lands in a greater or less advanced state of civilization. 
England's peculiar maritime position has given it its won- 
derful vantage-ground for progress in all human culture. 

In the east of Europe, the basins of rivers have exer- 
cised the same influence, to a certain extent, that has been 
hinted at above; and Moscow, Kiev,. Cracow, and War- 
saw remain the seats of a civilization which, rude as it was, 
owed its existence to the physical conditions of the great 
Sarmatiau river systems. In western Europe, the less 
marked features of the country have contributed to the 
peculiar historical development of the continent. The 
rich deltas have become the granaries for a large part of 
the population, allowing industry to flow into other channels 
besides agriculture. The sea-faring habits of the people 
along the coast have broken up and done away with what 
is special and provincial, and have conferred a cosmopoli- 
tan manner of living upon the entire population. It was 
the same with the Phenicians in ancient times, with the 
Portuguese in the middle ages, as it has been with the 
English, Spanish, and Dutch in modern days. Fishing. 



REVIEW 181 

navigation, and trade have become permanent necessities 
of civilization. In the heart of continental Europe, the 
rivers have had a great influence on the progress of na- 
tions ; the North German streams have extended their 
effect from the abode of the ancient Saxons along the Bal- 
tic as far as the home of the Salic Franks on the Scheldt, 
Seine, and Loire ; the Danube, with its complex and im- 
portant system of terraces and lowlands, has opened com- 
munication between South Germany and Hungary, Wal- 
lachia, and the East. The Yistula, Oder, Elbe, and Weser 
have connected the homes of the old Sclavic population 
with the Scandinavian coasts and the land of the Angles 
and Saxons at the neck of Denmark, to the equal advant- 
age of both. The great tei'race system of the Rhine, 
embracing the Odenwald, Hardt, Spessart, Taunus, Hunds- 
riick, Eifel, and the Siebengebirg, has thrown into the most 
active industrial and commercial relations the whole dis- 
trict which it waters. It opened a way to the Romans 
in their conquering advances before it did to the tribes of 
Helvetia, Gallia, Germania, or the Lowlands : it sundered 
those tribes, and kept them from preying upon each other ; 
but, in the advance of civilization, it has become one of 
the strongest bands to knit together the central countries 
of Europe. 

The Danube, with its extensive terrace lands, faces the 
east, and has, therefore, very different relations to Euro- 
pean history from the Rhine. It is a double-headed river, 
and one of its head-streams, the one which bears the name 
of the river proper, extends almost to the Rhine basin ; 
while the other, the Jura, has its source in Grisons, and 
hard by the head-waters of the Rhine. As the Danube 
connects the Caspian and Black Sea basin with western 
Europe, and the largest part of the Asiatic immigrations 

Q 



182 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

have followed its course, the Danube has become the great 
avenue betvi^een Europe and Asia. Celts, Teutons, and 
Romans were mingled even before Christ, in Noricum, 
Vindelecia, Bavaria, and Suabia. How many tribes may 
have been crowded westward by these, is unknown to us. 
The same fate has happened to the people who settled 
there before Christ, and the inroads of the Huns, Goths, 
and other tribes of similar origin, scattered the older in- 
habitants over all Central Germany. We know, too, that 
Sclavic, Hungarian, and Turkish incursions followed, each 
one dispossessing wholly or in part the one which pre- 
ceded it. 

All great rivers and river systems have had a similar 
influence on the course of civilization. There is not a 
single type feature in the world which has not contributed 
its part to the advance of the human race ; no one is with- 
out its place and its function. 



:e>-a.i^t III. 



The Configuration of the Continents. 

All the divisions of the earth, talien together in their 
internal and external connections, in their mutual action 
and reaction, constitute the unity of the globe, and make 
apparent that it is a simple organism, designed and cre- 
ated by divine skill, and intended to be the home of a race 
whose culture should, in the course of centuries, unfold 
from the most simple beginnings to the most complex and 
elaborate perfection. 

We have already seen that the surface of the earth is 
naturally divided into three typical features — highland, 
lowland, and the transition terraces between them. From 
the vertical and horizontal combination of these result the 
most of the geographical forms which are the subject of 
our study. They form what we may, for convenience, call 
the bas-relief of the globe. 

At the creation of the earth every great continental 
division received (as every other organism has, regarded 
by itself, and not in relation to the greater whole of which 
it forms a part) its own special form. Each continent 
is like itself alone; its characteristics are not shared by 
any other. Each one was so planned and so formed as to 
have its own special function in the progress of human 
culture. This may be seen by reviewing the history of 

(183) 



184 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

the past ; this may fairly be suspected yet to be in the 
future. The individuality of each continent raises it to a 
place where its characteristics give it an independent 
character, and a capacity of development of itself, up to a 
certain point, but never beyond it. The continents are 
never to be regarded as high, dead masses of land, but as 
vital and effective instruments, working upon each other 
ceaselessly, and helping each other to attain the consum- 
mation intended in the counsels of the Divine Mind. The 
unity of the earth, the unity of the continents, the unity of 
every physical feature of the continents, and the building 
all up together in a perfect symmetry and mutual adapta- 
tion of parts, is the crowning thought of Geographical 
Science. 

The study of first causes has no less clear illustrations 
in the course of our investigations than elsewhere. It is 
the task of science to show the nature and mutual rela- 
tions of all the subjects which fall within the scope of 
Natural History. The nature of the parts is only under- 
stood from a comprehension of the whole ; not the reverse, 
however. That is a most just saying of Plato. The 
knowledge of the universal cannot proceed from a knowl- 
edge of the special. As the part is formed only in view 
of and on account of the whole, in its study, dissociated 
from the whole, it becomes a mere unit and independent 
existence. From understanding the solar system, we 
might arrive at a knowledge of the motion of the earth ; 
and so, from a knowledge of the earth, we may advance 
to its continents, their relations, the characteristics of the 
different natural divisions, their subdivisions, their phe- 
nomena, and their living organization, embracing man, 
animals, and plants. 

The external formation of the globe, or what we may call 



CONFIGURATION OF THE CONTINENTS. 185 

the configuration of the continents, rests upon two cliarac- 
teristics — tlie horizontal and vertical dimensions. 

1. The horizontal dimensions are designated by the sea- 
line boundary — the geographical limitation. 

2. The vertical dimensions — the physical limitation — are 
defined by the elevation of terraces and highlands, and 
they exhibit the greatest diversity of phenomena. 

The horizontal dimensions supply most of the material 
for our elementary compends for political geography, which 
seldom make much account of vertical dimensions, and 
which, by no means, penetrate to their real value. They 
are commonly held to be a side-matter, to be touched 
lightly upon, or wholly cast aside. But both must be 
thoroughly studied ; for they are mutually dependent, and 
are never found divorced in nature. In order to under- 
stand them in their true relations, we will look at them in 
their general aspect, discussing first the horizontal extent 
of the continents, then their vertical elevation, so far as 
that has not already been treated. After this twofold in- 
vestigation, the character of each continent and its sub- 
divisions will appear in its true light. 

On account of the importance of thoroughly understand- 
ing the articulation of great districts, in contradistinction 
to a mere division, which implies no organic and living 
correlation of parts, and which gives over to mathematics, 
political history, and fortuitous circumstances the duty of 
explaining geographical phenomena, it is instructive to 
trace the footsteps of our science back to some of the 
earlier conceptions. 

Eratosthenes and Polybius were aware that the south 

of Europe was a series of peninsulas, the first of the two 

speaking of the great peninsulas of Spain, Italy, and the 

Peloponnesus, the latter adding allusions to the smaller 

Q* 24 



186 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

Grecian peninsula of Sunium, the Thracian on the Bos- 
porus, and the Tauric Chersonesus, now known as the Cri- 
mea. Strabo got a clearer insight into the significance 
of these forms, (whose meaning Hipparehus had already 
tried to explain,) by discussing them according to the sea 
basins which they separate. Thus the Spanish peninsula 
separates the Gulf of Cadiz, at the Pillars of Hercules, 
from the Tyrrhene Sea ; Italy separates the Sicilian Sea 
from the Adriatic ; the Peloponnesus separates the Adriatic 
and the Euxine. This view, though apparently simple, 
was really profound ; for it hinted at the great significance 
of the maritime coast in developing the civilization of those 
countries. And Strabo goes on to add that Italy, with its 
southeastern and southwestern extremities, becomes too 
pointed, (dcxopucpog,) and that the eastern peninsulas of 
Europe are much more jagged and articulated (vcoixiXat xai 
TToXurispsTc) than Polybius had conceived them to be. He 
entered, therefore, upon a more minute subdivision. Strabo 
had already (ii. 92) called the Peloponnesus "many- 
parted," (tzoXl) (T/jdit;,) as the Laconian peninsula (Tcena- 
rum) is separated from Malea, the Attic from Sunium, 
and all southern Europe cannot, therefore, be laid out in 
six parts. Of the north of Europe, Strabo was not in a 
position to gain any accurate conception. Toward the 
end of his second book, where he gives his reason for be- 
ginning his description at the West, he uses the awkward 
but significant phrase "polymorphous formation," to indi- 
cate the superiority which Europe enjoys in its complex 
articulation over the other continents. The passage in 
Strabo runs thus : " We begin with Europe, because it is 
so intricately organized, and is the most favorable for 
human culture, and has conferred upon the other conti- 
nents the most of the advantages which its position has 



CONFIGURATION OF THE CONTINENTS. 187 

secured for itself. It is habitable almost everywhere', 
there is but a little portion of its territory too cold to be 
the home of man, etc. It enjoys an admirable physical 
conformation, for it is so perfectly harmonized in the 
mingling of plains and mountains, (oXt] yap dca-s-oucXrai 
Tzsdca^ re xm opsdcv,) that the city and the country ai'e 
brought together, and the people educated by equally 
favorable conditions to habits of great bravery. Europe 
is, therefore, complete in herself, (dp.Tapxs(TTdT7j ^or:'.)" By 
this Strabo indicates the independent character of Europe, 
and its equality with the other continents, despite its 
smaller size. 

Yet for long centuries this insight of that keen observer 
into one of the most weighty of all the physical conditions 
of the globe was almost wholly overlooked. At length, 
however, Humboldt brought it out into new life in its 
climatological relations, and showed that it is one of the 
most important considerations to base a study of the dis- 
tribution of plants and animals upon, as well as for the 
study of almost all kinds of physical phenomena. In his 
very instructive paper on the most prominent reasons for 
the variation in temperature on the globe, published in 
182*1, he uses the significant expression: "Our Europe is 
indebted for its mild climate, to its position, and its ar- 
ticulated form." We have adhered to the same view, and 
have expanded it in a paper* called The Geographical 
Position and Horizontal Extension of the Continents, as 
well as in all my lectures. 

* This paper may be found in my earlier translation from Ritter 
Geographical Studies, page 177. — Ed. 



188 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

The Superficial Dimensions and Articulation of the 
Continents. 

We proceed from the more simple to the moi-e complex 
forms, and begin, therefore, with Africa, which has the 
most uniform contour of all the continents. 

Africa, the true South of the earth, is distinguished 
from all the other great divisions of the earth by its al- 
most insular form and its unbroken outlme. It is sepa- 
rated from Asia merely by the Isthmus of Suez, scarcely 
•70 miles wide. But it is of altogether more virgin a na- 
ture than Asia, and has been encroached upon by scarcely 
any foreign influence. Africa is a unit in itself; the most 
exclusive of continents, its periphery is almost a perfect 
ellipse. With the exception of the single Gulf of Guinea 
on the west side, the continent is a true oval. Its linear 
dimensions are almost equal in length and breadth. It 
extends about 35° on each side of the equator, and is 
about 70° of longitude in width. The length and breadth 
are both about 5000 miles. 

The periphery of its coast is the most simple and un- 
broken in the world. A single glance at the map is suf- 
ficient to show this. Nowhere are there the deep arms of 
the sea and the sinuous shores of other continents. The 
Gulf of Guinea is all. The entire length of its coast-line 
is but 16,000 or 17,000 miles, not much more than the 
circumference of a circle whose diameter is 5000 miles. 
Its coast-line, proportioned to its area, being the shortest 
on the globe, gives Africa the least contact with the ocean 
of all the continents, and subjects it to the least amount 
of oceanic influences. 

Thus all individualization of the various phases of life — 
vegetable, animal, and human — is denied to this continent, 



DIMENSIONS AND ARTICULATION OF CONTINENTS. 189 

whose extremities, ou account of tlie equality of its dimen- 
sions, lie equally far removed from the central point. The 
similar size and configuration of the two lobes north and 
south of the equator create no strong contrasts, and give 
rise merely to tropical and sub-tropical conditions. All 
the phenomena of this great division, the real South of the 
earth, in which all the culminations of the tropical world 
are found, are therefore more uniform than in any other 
part of the world. The characteristics of race remaiii 
in their primitive condition, and have made no progress 
with the lapse of time : this region seems to be kept as 
the refuge of a yet, undeveloped future. Only general, 
never individual and special development in the world of 
plants, animals, nor man, appear upon this stationary soil ; 
the palm, the camel, and their natural companions appear 
in equal numbers in the northern, southern, eastern, and 
western extremities ; the negro is almost exclusively the 
only inhabitant of the continent. There is no striking in- 
dividuality apparent in the culture, stature, organization, 
nor popular characteristics of its various parts. Even a 
common foundation language gives rise to mere dialecti- 
cal differences. A mere sporadic coast-culture gives rise 
to mere exceptions here and there, and these are generally 
the result, not of inward progress, but of imported foreign 
conditions, 

Asia, the Orient, is wholly unlike Africa. On three 
sides it is entirely sea-girt — the south, the east, and the 
north ; on the west only partly, about 1400 miles. On 
the west, too, it is connected with Africa, but not in a 
way to insure any necessary relations between the two 
continents. But with Europe it stands in the most inti- 
mate connection, forming a single body with it, of which 
Europe is really but a great western peninsula. Europe, 



190 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

the Occident of the Old World, is therefore far less widely 
severed from its Orient than from its real South or Africa. 
The history of Asia and that of Europe are woven with a 
twisted strand; they form a single thread, and their popu- 
lations are far more closely connected in physical and spir- 
itual organizations than are the people of Asia and Africa. 

Asia, instead of being a simple oval, approaches the 
trapezoidal form, and consequently enters into a new set 
of relations resulting from its configuration. With the 
deeply-penetrating gulfs and bays and seas which sink 
into its trunk, the prominent peninsulas are in direct cor- 
respondence, marking in an especial. manner the eastern 
and southern coast, but not lacking on the northern and 
western. These peninsulas are to be regarded as the 
limbs of a great central continental trunk. The eastern 
ones are the Tchooktchee foreland, the peninsulas of Kam- 
tchatka and Corea, and the Chinese foreland. The south- 
ern ones are the peninsula of Farther India, including 
Tonquin, Siam, Malacca, and Birmah ; the peninsulas of 
Hindostan, or Deccan and Arabia. The western limb is 
the peninsula of Asia Minor or Australia. The north- 
east of Asia is less articulated ; still it has a number of 
arms pointing southward — the Sea of Kara, the Gulfs of 
Obi and Yenisei, for example. The whole Siberian coast 
even is far more serrated than that of Africa, where it is 
an almost unbroken line. 

Still, there remains in the intei'ior of Asia a broad and 
long mass of the continent, which is penetrated by no seas. 
It is to be regarded as the real trunk, and preponderates 
immensely over the area of all the confined projections. 
Asia is, therefore, a trunk with profuse richness of ar- 
ticulation. Africa is a trunk without articulation : a mere 
compact continental mass. 



DIMENSIONS AND ARTICULATION OP CONTINENTS. 1.91 

The immense influence which so complex a coast form 
has upon all physical phenomena and on all organic life 
is evident. Far greater results must come from the mu- 
tual influence of sea and land than from unbroken land ; 
far more numerous influences upon the climate, and upon 
plants, animals, and man. Even the changing geological 
structure of the coast-line must have an effect, when blend- 
ing with all these other influences, greater than it would 
have in the interior. Every part of the coast has become 
different from every other part, with a different hydro- 
graphic and climatic character; and the great increase of 
races of men, and species of plants and animals, was a 
natural result. While Africa remained limited in all its 
relations, and destitute of any richness of variety, Asia 
has always enjoyed an amazing fertility of resources. In- 
stead of the three races or species of man found in Africa 
— Negro, Berber, and Caffrc — many are met in Asia, all 
diflfe.rent, Tchooktchees, Kamtchadales, Coreans, Chinese, 
Malays, Bermese, Hindoos, Afghans, Persians, Arabs, and 
Armenians. And these belong merely to the coast-line. 

But the contrast of the great central region to the 
broken coast is so great and complete, that the advanced 
culture along the sea-line has not penetrated far into the 
interior, nor changed the habits of the nomadic tribes 
which fill Central Asia, and whose representatives we 
have in the Mongolians, Toorkoraans, Kirgheez, Bukha- 
rians, Calmucks, etc. Still less could it reach the distant 
north, to which, with all the splendor which we associate 
with everything oriental, the civilization of the southern 
coasts is utterly wanting. To this element of superficial 
size, the immense and almost insuperable obstacles which 
Nature has placed so thickly in Asia may be added, and 
also the immense variety of natural productions which 



192 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

climates so different as those of the different parts of the 
continent exhibit. Extending from the equator to the 
north frigid zone, Asia affords a home for the most di- 
versified kinds of plants and animals, and shows, too, 
hardly less variety in its eastern and western extremes 
than in its northern and southern. The characteristics 
of the Chinese flora and fauna are very widely different 
from those of Hither Asia. In the east, we have the sago- 
tree and the tiger; in the west, the date-palm and the 
lion. The north gives us moss, the coniferse, and the 
reindeer, in contrast with the bread-fruit tree, the sugar- 
cane, the broad-leaved banana, the elephant, rhinoceros, 
tapir, and monkey of the south. 

The inexhaustibleness of the Asiatic continent is not 
more visible in all this wealth of productivity than in the 
abundance as well as the variety of human life. Though 
Asia has been the mother of the world, and has sent out 
so many and so eminent races, it has not been to the de- 
pletion of the parent country. In race, figure, color, 
manner of life, nationality, religion, political and social 
bonds of union, forms of government, culture, language, 
it is so richly diversified, that no continent, viewed histori- 
cally, can be compared to it. Asia seems to have been 
created to send forth its fruitful scions of life to all the 
other great divisions of the earth. 

Europe, the Occident. The smallest of the three con- 
tinents of the Old World, its superficial contents are the 
largest in proportion to the amount of coast-line. Only 
on the east side has it a land frontier; and there it has 
its widest extent from north to south. Like Asia, it is 
bordered on three sides by the ocean. Asia seems like a 
mighty trunk, at v/hose western extremity the broken and 
serrated Occident is found, advancing in breadth from 



DIMENSIONS AND ARTICULATION OP CONTINENTS. 193 

north to south, but articulating into arms of various size 
from east to west, till it loses itself in the peninsulas of 
the Atlantic coast. The nearer to Asia, the broader is Eu- 
rope, and the more akin to the Asiatic character ; the far- 
ther from it, the more minute become its subdivisions, and 
the more varied its character. 

Taken in a general way, the proportion of the truly 
continental part of Europe to the maritime districts is 
much less than is the case in Asia. Its contrast with 
Africa is, of course, yet more striking. 

Europe begins at the east, a4; the foot of the Ural and 
Caucasus, and at the steppes of West Asia. It does not 
take, as Asia and Africa do, (which are alike in this,) a 
trapezoidal or oval form, but in its linear dimensions there 
is a great difference between its length and breadth. By 
the diminution of its width, as we go westward, and by 
the increase of its articulation, the number of its internal 
relations increases toward the Atlantic. A great falling 
off in the oriental character which has largely encroached 
upon Russia, and a constant increase of an independent 
spirit, is the sure result of natural conditions, and is ex- 
perienced in all life and in things material as well as in- 
tellectual and moral. The configuration here wins a 
palpable victory over mere quantity, and the exceedingly 
varied coast gives to all European institutions their dis- 
tinctive character. 

Beginning with a breadth of about 1400 miles at the 
east, the continent gradually diminishes in width to 
1000, 500, and even to 250 miles. Its first narrowing is 
visible between the Gulf of Riga and the Bay of Odessa; 
the next is between the Baltic and the Gulf of Trieste ; 
the next, between the Zuider-Zee and the Gulf of Genoa; 
the next, between the English Channel at Calais and the 
R 25 



194 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

Gulf of Lyons ; and the last, between Bayonno and Per> 
pignan. 

With almost three times as great a length as breadth, 
Europe extends for a distance of over 300 miles from the 
southern part of the Ural chain and from the Caucasus 
to the extremities of the bold coast of Spain and Portu- 
gal, Capes Finistere and St. Vincent. In this way the 
continent assumes very nearly the form of a right-angled 
triangle, the right angle lying at the Caspian, the base 
extending westward to Cape Finistere, the perpendicular 
running northward along the Ural Mountains to the Yai- 
gats Straits, and the hypothenuse connecting the two 
extremities. The area embraced within this triangle 
would be not far from 2,200,000 square miles. Such a 
triangle, however, is not exact, — it is but an approxima- 
tion to mathematical precision ; but it is clearly enough 
marked to be traced upon our map, or, as a spherical tri- 
angle, upon our globes. All geographical forms have only 
a more or less remote approach to mathematical exact- 
ness, but enough to aid us very much in representing them 
and showing their relations. 

Almost all the greater and really important extremities 
of the continent lie outside of the triangle above indicated ; 
and this method of treatment only serves to call attention to 
the great central mass, which would otherwise be in danger 
of being overlooked, in view of the immense value and 
influence of the countries on the coast and beyond the tri- 
angular line of demarkation. It needs but a glance to see 
how the projecting shores have marred all the theoretical 
precision of such a line. 

The coast-line shows itself directly subject to almost 
boundless diversity. Toward the west the independence 
of each peninsula increases, the more evidently and promi- 



DIMENSIONS AND ARTICULATION Or CONTINENTS. 195 

nently according to its distance from Asia. Not articulated 
on two sides alone, like Asia, the east and south, but on 
all three of its sides exposed to the ocean, the broken 
coast-line is universal in Europe, — even toward the colder 
north, where its peninsulas and adjacent islands almost 
inclose two seas, the North and the Baltic. The advant- 
age which this gives to Europe over Asia in respect to the 
development of its more northern regions, is very great 
and evident. 

We will enumerate the leading peninsulas of Europe : 

Kola, on the White Sea, between Lake Enara, the Y aran- 
ger Fiord, and the Bay of Kandalaska, pointing westward. 

Scandinavia, embracing Norway and Sweden, with 
an area of more than 350,000 square miles, a tenth 
of all Europe, connected with the main land by the isth- 
mus of Finland, but otherwise girded in a great bow by 
the Atlantic, the North Sea, the Baltic, and the Gulf of 
Bothnia, and pointing southward. 

Jutland or Denmark, beginning at the Elbe and the 
Trave and running north, embracing about jiy of Europe, 
between the North Sea and the Baltic, low and flat. 

The subdivided peninsula of Holland, between the 
Rhine and the Ems, a flat plain, looking to the north. 

The peninsula of Normandy and Brittany, between the 
Seine and the Loire, a rocky granite formation, jutting 
out into the Atlantic and faced by bold precipices. 

Spain and Portugal, embracing about 220,000 square 
miles, about y'g of Europe, rhomboidal in shape, almost 
insular in position, turned southwesterly, its surface a 
series of constantly rising terraces. 

Italy, embracing 3'^ of Europe, between the Alps and 
Sicily, and traversed by a mountain range. 

Turkey and Greece, or summing it more strictly under 



196 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

one word, the Grecian peninsula, between the Danube 
and the Morea, a most minutely divided region of plateaus 
and mountain chains ; in truth, the most articulated pen- 
insula in the world, and embracing J^ of Europe. 

The Crimea, a rhomboidal peninsula, turned to the 
south — its northern half a flat steppe, its southern a high 
plateau — the only peninsula of southeastern Europe pro- 
jecting into the Black Sea. 

Every one of these peninsulas differs from every other 
in shape ; every one has a distinct individuality imposed 
upon it. Within the smallest compass on earth, relatively 
speaking, there is found around Europe the very largest 
variety in its articulations. The Grecian peninsula finds 
its only superior on the northwest of Europe, in the coast 
of insulated England. 

By means of this characteristic separation of so many 
more or less individualized parts of the continent through 
the agency of arms of the sea, the coast-line of Europe 
has been prolonged to an extraordinary length. The areas 
of the three continents of the Old World are as follows 
in round numbers: Europe, 3,500,000 square miles; 
Africa, 11,800,000 square miles; and Asia, 19,300,000 
square miles. Although the superficial contents of Africa 
are three times that of Europe, the length of the coast- 
line is so far from being equal, that that of Europe is much 
the greater, being 25,400 miles. The Asiatic coast-line 
is about one-third longer still, 32,900 miles; but, as the 
area of Asia is more than five times that of Europe, a 
great part of the Asiatic coast-line, that on the north, 
from Nova Zembla to Kamtchatka, must be considered as 
unimportant in relation to the development of the re- 
sources of Asia. 

Europe is, therefore, that continent of the Old World 



DIMENSIONS AND ARTICULATION OF CONTINENTS. 197 

vvhicli has relatively, and I might almost say absolutely, 
received the largest coast-line of any, encompassing a dis- 
tance of 25,400 miles. That is to say, the coast-line of 
Europe, extended in a straight line, would pass around 
the globe and coincide with the equator. To this admi- 
rable feature may be added its favorable relation in situa- 
tion to the various oceanic and wind currents, and its mag- 
nificent supply of harbors, the result of its articulated 
coast, all of which have made Europe the mistress of the 
seas. Within modern times, the island group of Great 
Britain and Ireland, the richest in harbors, is to the con- 
tinent what, in ancient times, the Greek peninsula was, 
with its wealth of inlets, which gave it the command of 
the Mediterranean. A rich gift this has been to the 
smallest of the continents of the Old World, to equalize 
its condition with others. The providential wisdom 
which "sets one thing over against another," is clearly 
manifest in this. Europe, though in the center of the 
great continental land-mass, becomes the most maritime 
of all, the m^ost approachable of all ; or, in other words, 
its countries and its peoples are the most closely connected 
with the sea of all in the Old World, because they stand in 
the most unbroken contact with it. 

Thus we discover the characteristic type which was 
impressed on Europe from the very first. Its relation to 
the world could not be understood by the ancients, as to 
them half of the earth lay in unbroken darkness. Only 
by experience, only by the advance of civilization, and by 
comparison with all the other continents, could this in- 
sight be gained. Doubtless many similar relations yet 
remain unknown and unsuspected, which will some day 
come to the hght. The earth, as a planet, is only a grain 
of seed-corn sown by the Creator, enriched with powers 



198 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

of unfolding to infinite perfection in the unexplored future. 
What we now perceive are only the elementary princi- 
ples — our knowledge only a motley; but even this is not 
without its uses, and is worthy of patient mastery, 

Europe, so broken in its coast, and rifted far toward its 
center by arms of the sea, has been affected in all its civil 
and social history to a very great extent. This is the 
first natural condition of its progress, the true physical 
basis of the fact that, upon the most limited of the conti- 
nents, the greatest historical diversity has sprung up. It 
is not absolute size, but relative, which gives the pre-emi- 
nence; not the raw material, the mere mass, but its ar- 
ticulation, its form, which here, as everywhere, gives mind 
the mastery over matter. As in the animal and vegetable 
world there is, amid all the diversity of forms, a constant 
advance from a lower to a higher plane, manifesting itself 
in the complexity of the organs ; so, in the so-called unor- 
ganized side of nature, we see the same characteristic as 
soon as we have grasped the whole mutual system of 
adaptations. The most general study of the differences 
between the continents exhibits an analogous harmony 
and correlation. As the simple, broad-leaved, solid cactus, 
or bunch-trunked euphorbia, (peculiar to the dry sand 
steppes of America and Africa,) appear branchless and 
without foliage,- — the lower and undeveloped forms of 
vegetation, — so, too, the regions to which they are indig- 
enous are the unbroken plains of North America, or the 
plateaus of still less broken Africa. 

The broken coast-line of Asia and Europe is analogous 
to that higher development which we find in the palm and 
in the full, round crown of the European fruit-tree, which 
bears blossoms and fruit as far as the very extremities of 
the branches. In the animal organization, the articulation 



DIMENSIONS AND ARTICULATION OF CONTINENTS. 199 

of Europe is to be compared with the complex hand of 
man, so far superior to the prehensile organs of lower 
creatures, that Buffon saw in that feature alone the mani- 
festation of man's place among the animal kingdom. 

If we look out over the earth, we see that the limbs of 
the continents, so to speak, the coasts, the peninsulas, and 
the adjacent islands, are the most favored places of all for 
civilization to find its true home upon. With the degree 
of diversity in the structure of a country, the value of its 
organisms advances. In this respect, Europe may be con- 
sidered as the branches and foliage of a great tree, whose 
trunk and root are to be traced to Central Asia, Africa 
being a stunted side-shoot. Or, to compare the continents 
to a still higher class of forms, Europe may be called the 
Face of the Old World, out of which the soul of humanity 
could look more clearly into the great and promising fu- 
ture. 

We repeat it — it is not absolute size, it is not the mass 
nor the weight of the material, it is the form, in its greater 
complexity, which determines the fate of nations and de- 
crees the advancement of man. This gift, in its full meas- 
ure, has been conferred on Europe. In its complex ar- 
ticulation lies still another characteristic of Europe in 
contradistinction to the other continents. 

If in Africa the coast oifers no contrast to the interior, 
and both remain on the same low plane of development, 
Asia, on the contrary, displays a perfect antagonism be- 
tween its central regions and its sea-board. The territory 
of the Mongolians, the Tartars, and Toorkomans has always 
remained at the very lowest stage of civilization. The sea- 
board, on the other hand, has witnessed the growth of a 
number of isolated nations, who, without the he'p of 
mutual dependence, have arrived at a considerably high 



200 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

degree of culture — the Chinese, Malays, Hindoos, Per- 
sians, Arabians, Syrians, and Armenians. But their in- 
fluence could not penetrate to the compact interior, to 
transform its nature, nor modify its nationalities. Indi- 
vidual progress in nations, however high it may be carried, 
can never contribute much toward any real penetration of 
the interior of so vast a region as Central Asia. 

Europe shows in its construction and the relations to 
which it gives rise characteristics exactly opposite. Being 
far less massive, the proportion of its extremities to the 
undeveloped interior is much less great than in Asia. 
From this, it results that the central part does not prove 
a hinderance to civilization, viewed physically, hydro- 
graphically, or historically; it nowhere serves as a barrier, 
but rather as a mediator, and a means of communication 
between the extremities. This has given Europe a char- 
acter exactly opposite to that of Asia : its North and its 
South are united, its East and its West; they are not like 
antagonistic poles, but extend to each other friendly hands. 
In Africa, the greater part of the interior lies absolutely 
without contact with and relations to the coast. In Asia, 
there is a much larger portion of the interior equally with- 
out connection with the sea-board, and remaining up to 
this day in its primitive barbarism. 

Symmetry of form gains in Europe a clear advantage 
over mere mass. Europe, the smallest of the continents, 
was destined to gain precedence over all the rest, Asia in- 
cluded. As Asia, lying within all the zones, colossal in size, 
and most plentifully enriched with the gifts of nature, was 
fitted to be the nursery of supply for all other parts of the 
world without impoverishing itself; so Europe, limited 
in size and confined to the temperate zone, but most com- 
plex in its subdivision, having a great diversity in its ocean 



DIMENSIONS AND ARTICULATION OF CONTINENTS. 201 

inlets, as well as in its hills, ^alleys, plateaus, and mount- 
ains, jet, without great extremes, has been especially 
fitted for the reception of stranger races, and for the 
development of their energies and the advance of their 
culture. The symmetry and harmony of Europe have 
constituted the true home of all varieties of national 
character, and have adapted it to their mutual action, 
and to the transfer of their distinctive character to one 
another. 

Throughout the entire center of Europe there is an in- 
timate connection with the sea-coast and with the ex- 
tremities, with the least possible disadvantages. This is ac- 
complished by those sinuous river-courses whose analogies 
are to be found nowhere in the adjacent continents. The 
very broadest part of Russia even is intersected with large 
navigable rivers; and the west and center of Europe are 
not less richly supplied with these lines of communication, 
whose starting-points lie often close together, as in the case 
of the Danube, the Rhine, the Po, and the Rhone. How 
different is this from the hydrographical system of Centra] 
Asia, where the sources of the eastern rivers lie thousands 
of miles removed from those of the western rivers, and 
where the rivers of the north are separated by almost as 
great distances from those of the south ! 

To what nature has given to Europe man has largely 
added, seeking by means of canals and railways to make 
the whole continent subject to him and auxihary to his 
needs. In this way the interior districts have appro- 
priated to themselves the advantages of the sea-coast, 
and the distance which it has placed between itself and 
Asia and Africa has only been increased. Nature first 
gave Europe its vantage-ground, and man has gone on 
from that point and doubled the gifts of nature. 

26 



202 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

Great peninsulas stretch away into both the great in- 
land seas of Europe — that of the North and that of the 
South ; the Danish and Scandinavian peninsulas into the 
complex, and yet, physically speaking, single body of 
water, embracing the North Sea, Baltic, and Gulf of Both- 
nia; Spain, Italy, and the Grecian peninsula extending 
southward into the Mediterranean. In the latter there is 
the greatest contrast between the deeply-indented northern 
shore and the bare, sandy coast of the African side. In 
just as great contrast is the uniformly unbroken sea-line 
of northern Siberia, compared with the articulated shore 
of northern Russia. How entirely different would the 
development of northern Asia have been, if a Siberian in- 
land sea had penetrated to the very foot of the Altai, as 
the seas of northern Europe have pierced to the center of 
the continent ! And had the shallow Syrtis cleft north- 
ern Africa as far as Lake Tchad, as the Adriatic has done 
on the opposite coast. Central Africa would not now be a 
terra incognita. 

The northern as well as the southern extremities of Europe, 
so far as they are projected into inland seas, have received 
an equal size and equal natural advantages, each of its 
own kind, so that, conditioned by its own peculiarities, its 
population have helped it to attain its rightful place, and 
an individuality independent of continental influences. 
The abundant resources which each of these extremities 
enjoys have insured it, in a physical as well as histori- 
cal view, an independence which has reacted favorably 
upon the whole continent. What a debt does not Europe 
owe to the Greeks, Italians, Spaniards, Dutch, Danes, 
Scandinavians ! How entirely different would the whole 
development of the shores of Europe have been, had they 
been bold, inaccessible rocks, an unbroken line of coast, 



ISLANDS. 203 

like Uralaska, or the smaller Asiatic peninsulas of Kam- 
tehatka and Malacca ! And where would the accomplished 
European stand to-day, in comparison with his black 
neighbor on the south, were it not for the articulated 
coast-line of the continent which gives him his home ? 

And still there remains, out of the inexhaustible rich- 
ness of nature, one leading feature to be taken into ac- 
count. To estimate it properly, we must pay attention 
briefly to the islands of the three continents of the Old 
World. 

Islands. 

Europe, as a continent, is distinguished by its adjacent 
islands. Following the irregular coast-line of its many 
extremities, they lie along, in greater or less number, the 
satellites, so to speak, of the main land. They are scattered 
almost everywhere, yet not distant from the coast, like 
Iceland, but within sight of the shore. In character they 
resemble the adjacent coast, and form a true part of the 
main land, except in the one fact of separation. Strabo 
even called Sicily an insular continuation of Italy, and 
discriminated between islands found in mid-ocean and 
those found near the coast, calling the former pelagic and 
the latter littoral islands. These he regarded as having 
been at some previous period rent from the main land. 
The coast islands are by no means, like many of the pelagic 
islands, mere rocky groups, thrown up by volcanic convul- 
sions, or small, desolate, barren ledges. They are very di- 
verse in chai'acter: some are fertile single islands, like 
Sicily, Candia, Bornholm, Rugen, Negropont; some are 
double islands, like Britain and Ireland, Zealand and 
Funen, Corsica and Sardinia; some are island groups, 
like the 3 Balearic islands, the 3 Maltese islands, the 20 
Ionian islands, the 61 Orkneys, the 90 Shetlands, the still 



204 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

more numerous Hebrides, the Aland group, and that of 
the Grecian archipelago. They are generally of very large 
size, in comparison with the continent to which they are 
adjacent; a characteristic not only very rare in islands, 
but which must exert great influence. They are to be 
viewed, therefore, as continuations of Europe, not as lands 
sundered from the main land ; they are to be considered as 
its sea-ports, and the mediators between Europe and the 
other continents. 

In round numbers, the islands of Europe embrace about 
115,000 square miles — a twentieth of the continent. 

This amount of insular territory has given Europe a 
great diversity of relations, and has contributed much to 
its ethnographical character. Imagine only England and 
her whole group struck out of existence. What impover- 
ishment it would bring 1 The Danish peninsula, without 
the adjacent islands of Funen and Zealand, were a mere 
tongue of sand. Without Sicily to furnish grain, Rome's 
history had been entirely different from what it was. What 
a change it would have made in the development of Italy 
and Greece, had the Cyclades and Crete not served as a 
bridge, over which the civilization of Hither Asia might 
pass ! Yet these islands, with their inhabitants, do not 
stand in necessary dependence on the contiguous main 
land ; they have often in themselves the conditions of in- 
dependent growth and prosperity. And yet the geologi- 
cal qualities and general features of islands may agree 
very closely with those of the land hard by; as is the case 
with the British, Danish, Italian, and Grecian groups. 
. Southern England is a continuation of northern France, 
Picardy, and the Netherlands, as the geology of these 
districts shows. Sicily is a continuation of the volcanic 
soil of Calabria, and Candia of the Morea. 



ISLANDS. 205 

Hence the possibility, despite the separation of islands 
from the main land, of a close connection in the habits, 
manners, and culture of the people, thus separated, de- 
pending as they do on a common soil, and having the 
same industries in common. It would be entirely differ- 
ent in Great Britain, for example, if the south end of 
England were geologically formed like the north end of 
Scotland. Instead of harmony there would be repulsion, 
and that mutual interchange of relations would not exist 
which has so powerful an influence on the whole course 
of European history. 

The remarkable number of islands on the coast of Eu- 
rope, and their significance and value, formerly escaped 
attention ; or rather their influence on the development of 
that continent, in comparison with others, was not made a 
matter of study. 

Africa has never enlarged its domain through the aid 
of adjacent islands. Poor as it is in all coast indentations, 
it is just as poor in islands. Only a few insignificant ones, 
which have no close geological connection with the shore, 
are found here The sporadic groups found in the Atlan- 
tic and Indian Oceans are almost exclusively the product 
of subterranean forces, and are entirely unlike the stratified 
lime and sandstone formations of the coast. There is, 
therefore, no close connection between the inanimate na- 
ture of continent and islands and their respective popula- 
tions ; no physical conditions have imposed upon them a 
common historical development. Only the Canary Islands, 
southwest of the Atlas Mountain range and Madagascar, 
could be regarded as at all e-xceptional to this. But the 
nine Canaries are relatively extremely small, embracing 
but about 3000 square miles in all ; much too small to ex- 
ercise any important influence, or to harbor a large popu- 
S 



206 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

lation. Besides, they are separated from the main land 
by marine currents, which would prevent any very import- 
ant reaction, however large the islands in themselves might 
be. The Cape Yerd islands, embracing only about 1*150 
square miles, stand in yet more unfavorable relations to 
the main land. So, too, the solitary islands of St. Helena 
and Ascension, and in the Indian Ocean the scattered 
groups of the Camara, Amirante, and Seychelle islands, 
embracing all together but 3300 square miles, and Soco- 
tra, about 1*750 square miles. Only Madagascar would 
be large enough to enrich the continent essentially, if it 
were nearer to the main land. But it is separated from it 
by the broad and dangerous Mozambique Channel ; both, 
therefore, have remained without mutual relations ; their 
populations are entirely unlike, and there has been no ex- 
change of productions between them Madagascar is, 
therefore, only apparently, and by the apparent contiguity 
of the mass, a neighbor of Africa; but, in reality, i.e. as 
it relates to the organic unity of all the various parts of 
the globe, it is far more intimately connected by the sys- 
tem of marine currents to the Malayan Archipelago, south- 
east of Asia, than to Africa. 

Entirely different is it with the island system of Asia. 
The eastern and southern sides are remarkably character- 
ized by the profuse numbers of islands found there. It 
might be said, that what Africa lacks in this regard, Asia 
more than supplies. On the Asiatic coast they appear in 
such vast numbers that they have been called, in contrast 
with the Old and New Worlds, the Island World, or Poly- 
nesia. They appear under the most varied conditions — in 
long rows, in massive groups, and here and there singly. 
They begin with the North Polar islands, and pass south- 
ward in unbroken succession past the equator as far as 
the tropic of Capricorn. 



ISLANDS. 201 

The Aliaska chain connects the northwest coast of 
America with Kamtchatka; it comprises over 100 islands, 
and embraces about 1660 square miles. 

The Koorile island extends to the south as far as Sag- 
halien and Yesso. 

The Japanese chain runs southward as far as Cape 
Corea, and includes the great island of Niphon with 
numerous smaller ones, embracing an area of 164,000 
square miles. 

Then follow : — 

The Loo-Choo islands as far as Formosa. 

The single island of Formosa, 13,000 square miles. 

The coast island of Hainan, 16,450 square miles. 

The numerous group of the Philippines, with the adja- 
cent islands, 121,000 square miles. 

The greater Sunda group, with its adjoining archipel- 
ago, 689,500 square miles. Of these, Borneo embraces 
295,600 square miles; Sumatra, 167,700 square miles; 
Java, 54,600 square miles; and Celebes, 72,600 square 
miles. 

The smaller Sunda group, 29,200 square miles. 

The scattered group of the Moluccas, with the Banda 
and Ternate islands, 7950 square miles. 

The great island of New Guinea, 262,800 square miles, 
which forms the transition of the Australian group. 

On the south coast of Deccan, the great island of Cey- 
lon, 25,860 square miles. 

These rows and groups of islands, embracing an aggre- 
gate of 1,095,000 square miles, form a kind of insular 
isthmus from the southeastern extremity of Asia to the 
northwest of Australia, though broken by unnumbered 
straits. If lines be drawn from Sumatra and from 
Hainan to Cape York, on the north coast of Australia, an 



208 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

ideal istlmiiis would be formed not unlike that which con- 
nects North and South America. If this insular isthmug 
be further conceived to have been thrown up by volcanic 
forces, as that of Panama seems to have been, an addition 
of 1,095,000 square miles has been made in this way to 
the most productive portions of the world. So great is 
the accession of territory that it has become the abode of 
a distinct race — the Malay — which hardly finds a home 
at all on the Asiatic shore. Asia has received very little 
advantage from this vast archipelago. Only the south- 
east coast has been affected by it; the continent, as a 
w^hole, has not been reached by its influence. On the 
contrary, Australia has been largely affected by it in its 
productive and ethnographical character. Not only was 
it first discovered through the agency of these islands, but 
it probably derives its population from them ; it has re- 
ceived many of its animals and plants from them — the 
sugar-cane, the sago palm, the bread-fruit tree, the dog, 
and the swine. 

In Polynesia, which, in point of size, far surpasses the 
Antilles group north of South America, we have the most 
dismembered region on the surface of the globe. It is the 
highest degree of insulation, of individualization, and re- 
sults from the extreme carrying out of dispersing causes. 
The space occupied by the greater Sunda group, with its 
five seas — the China, Java, Molucca, Celebes, and Min- 
doro — together with the islands adjacent, the whole lyingbe- 
tween longitude 110° and 160° east and latitude 10° south 
and 20° north, a tract 3525 miles long and 2115 miles wide 
may worthily be compared with the area of Europe. Such 
a mass of island groups and single isles, belonging not to 
Asia with any strict right, but in truth a maritime world 
of itself, having but the slightest connections with the 



ISLANDS. 209 

adjacent continent, is not to be compared with the island 
system of Europe, which is bound to the main land by 
the closest ties. 

Were a similar insular dismemberment the universal 
principle on which the world is constructed, and were 
there no continents whatever, there would be an entire 
want of direct dependence in nations upon each other, 
and a degree of independence which would be fatal to the 
best interests of man. Europe would be broken up into 
a number of great islands, like Borneo, and into countless 
islets. In the conformation of Europe, however, there is 
the happiest system of compensations, and the most har- 
laonious play of contrasts to be found in the world. The 
disadvantages of a too great dividing up into islands, as in 
Polynesia, and of too compact and unrifted a central mass, 
as in Africa, are ahke shunned. Both extremes could not 
fail to be injurious to the best interests of the population. 
The fullness and richness of nature might, perhaps, be in- 
increased ; but the effects on human life could not fail to 
be bad. Man's highest development does not consist 
with any extreme in the natural world : it is linked to the 
action and reaction of contrasts. In Polynesia, the dis- 
trict of extreme dismemberment, the Malays are the least 
homogeneous of any race on the earth. Malays, Battahs, 
Dakkas, Horasuras, and Papuas are all engaged in de- 
structive war on each other, and are among the most de- 
graded peoples on the globe. In this region there is the 
greatest diversity in physical nature, but not in the essen- 
tial characteristics of man. One point of accord ought 
not to be passed by : there, where the forces of nature, 
maritime and volcanic, are on the greatest scale known, 
the warlike passions of man are on a not less consuming 
scale. In Polynesia there are the rankest vegetation, the 
S* 27 



X 



210 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

most fervid heat, the most costly spices, animals very large 
and rare; but man attains to no such superiority, — he de- 
generates in worth and takes a low place. Where the 
three natural kingdoms attain their perfection, man seems 
to linger in the rear. 

In Africa, where there is perfect uniformity in nature, 
there is uniformity in man ; and the negro stock, though 
prolific, gives no race of high development to the world. 
Both extremes are equally unfavorable to the advance of 
man ; he must have, in order to expand and take the place 
to which his possibilities lead him, a sphere of mutual 
conditions, to which a compact continent like Africa and 
Central Asia can lay no claim, and at the same time be 
free from that extreme individualization characteristic of 
the islands of Polynesia. 

Europe lies between these extremes. Limited in area, 
diversified in surface, and deeply indented in its coast-line, 
it has experienced all the advantages which a continent 
needs for its development, and for that historical greatness 
which Europe has won for itself. Less striking in natu- 
ral scenery and comparatively poor in resources, its con- 
trasts in respect mainly to the action of its inland seas 
and rivers over the main land have conduced to the hap- 
piest results. It has become the s'^hool for the Old and 
the New World, taking the vitality and the crude gifts of 
Asia and turning them into channels where they could 
issue in new forms for the advancement and the human- 
izing of the race. 

The Results of the above Considerations briefly stated. 

It will be seen, from what has now been said, that, with 
an area three times less than that of Africa, Europe (in- 
cluding its adjacent islands) has a coast-line twice as ex- 



ISLANDS. 211 

tended. Without the islands, it is 25,380 miles in length, 
or the circumference of the earth. The coast-line of Africa 
extends lt,860 miles ; that of Asia 32,900. 

The exceedingly varying areas of the continents may 
now be passed in very speedy review. Europe is but a 
fifth as large as Asia. It is somewhat more than a quar- 
ter as large as Africa ; it is almost of the same size with 
Australia. In relation to America, it stands between Asia 
and Africa ; it makes about yV of all the continents, and 
about ^Q of all the land surface of the globe ; but it is 
not absolute size, but relative, which determines the im- 
portance of a continent ; and this twentieth part of all 
the land on the globe has had paramount influence over 
all the rest within the past few centuries. The ethno- 
graphical character of its population has had great weight 
in securing this result, and other reasons will doubtless 
be more apparent in the future. 

One of the most important features in the study of the 
relative importance of the continents is the comparative 
relation of the main trunk, articulation, and island system 
to each other. The following table presents this relation 
as it exists in the Old World : — 

Africa: trunk 1, extremities 0, islands Jjj 

Asia: " 4, " 1, " ^ 

Europe: " 2, " 1, " J^j 

These are but approximations to the exact mathematical 

statement ; but they serve to indicate comprehensively 

this important fact. No exact canon now exists for the 

perfect expression of the relations of the continents to 

each other, and their physical superiority and inferiority, 

and its lack is no less felt than it has been in art to express 

the comparative importance of the organs of the human 

body in giving a representation of man. 



212 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

The K'ew World. 

America is broken by the Caribbean Sea into a double 
continent, both parts being of colossal magnitude, although 
the southern portion is about 2,000,000 square miles 
less in area than the northern. North America con- 
tains 9,055,146 square miles. South America contains 
1,073,875 square miles; and both contain 16,129,021. 
The connecting link is found in the tapering isthmus of 
Central America, with its 302,443 square miles of surface. 

But closely connected as is the northern part of the 
continent with the southern, in a physical sense, in real 
connection, so far as man is concerned, they are widely 
separated. During the three centuries which have elapsed 
since the discovery of America, the Spanish and the Amer- 
icans have thought of breaking the connection — of sun- 
dering the isthmus. All communication between North 
and South America takes place by water, absolutely none 
by land. Even before the navigation of the historical 
period, there seems to have been no land road opened 
along the isthmus. The old race of the Caribs passed in 
boats from the Appalachian mountain land of North Amer- 
ica to South America and the West Indies. The Toltecs 
and Aztecs — the oldest tribes which wandered southward 
— seemed to have ended their march on the high plateau 
of Mexico and the vale of Anahuac. The legends of the 
Incas give us no tidings of their traversing the isthmus 
and reaching Peru on foot, and it is probable that they 
reached that land otherwise. The isthmus seems never 
to have been a bridge, but always a barrier. The great 
Antilles group of islands appears to have served far more 
as a means of communication between North and South 
America. 



THE NEW WORLD. 213 

In respect of contour, both divisions have an unmis- 
takable analogy, which appears at first view. Both ex- 
hibit a triangular form, with the base at the north and the 
apex at the south. Toward the south, too, rather than 
toward the west, speaking in general terms, the gradual 
conquests of man advance, and therefore there cannot be 
in the New World, as in the Old, a striking contrast be- 
tween the Orient and the Occident. East and west, in the 
New World, are less dependent on each other ; they have 
more individuality, but with a great preponderance of 
importance in the east over the west side,. by reason of 
the more favorable situation in relation to the sea, less 
sharpness and boldness of physical features, and a more 
scanty population. The west side of America has by no 
means kept up with the advance of its eastern side. Nor 
could the more southern shores of America compete with 
those on the northeast, and supply an analogy to the Occi- 
dent of the Old World ; for North America stands related 
to Europe by ties of the closest nature, by wind systems, 
currents, a not dissimilar climate, and is far more nearly 
connected with it than with South America : nor could 
the latter derive any real advantage from its opposite 
neighbor, rude and undeveloped Africa ; nor has the Ca- 
ribbean Sea performed any such service for America as 
the Mediterranean has for Europe, being twice as large in 
area and far more unfavorably situated to advance the in- 
terests of civilization. It is only within a recent period 
that the Caribbean has become a valuable auxiliary to the 
culture of the world. 

South America is only a colossal right-angled triangle 
of land, with very little articulation in its shores. The 
northwest and the eastern angles are sharply defined, and 
the southern one is very acute, the continent running out 



214 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY, 

iu the shape of a thin wedge. With some modifications, 
it has the same form with its neighbor Africa, and is just 
as unvarying in its want of a serrated coast, its sea-line 
being but 16,000 miles in length, almost the same as that 
of Africa. Like Africa, too. South America is destitute 
of peninsulas and adjacent islands ; its coast is as unin- 
dented as that of Africa and Australia, all three of these 
continents of the southern hemisphere being in strict con- 
formity. Yet South America is capable of great progress : 
its conditions are very plastic ; it is characterized by the 
size and number of the great rivers which pass through 
its very center; its flora and fauna are extremely rich. In 
the fruitfulness of its soil, its division by mountains, and 
its water system, it holds great pre-eminence over Africa. 
An effort to connect its great rivers, and thus to make its 
immense natural advantages of mutual service, seems to 
promise a far more prosperous future for South America 
than can be predicted for Central Africa ; yet the native 
population of the country stand on a very low plane of 
manhood. 

The wedge-shaped plateau of Patagonia is not at all 
benefited, as previous analysis would lead us to expect, by 
its long coast and by the nearness of the islands of Terra 
del Fuego. The fruitful island of Tasmania is far more 
valuable to Australia than is this island to Patagonia, 
and even Iceland is a more productive neighbor to Nor- 
way. The Terra del Fuego group, embracing a territory 
of 29,000 square miles, although hard by the South Amer- 
ican coast, only injures it instead of blessing it, for it 
imperils shipping and harbors a population so degraded 
that they have no wants which can stimulate the rudest 
civilization. With a precipitous, craggy coast, without 
trees and without grass, covered only with moss, and be- 



THE NEW WORLD. 215 

longing strictly to the polar worid, it must give a habita- 
tion to the very lowest and most degraded of the human 
race, isolated from the world, and only casually visited 
when winds and storms throw mariners upon its shores. 

Not every island is to be considered, therefore, as a 
gain to the adjacent main land. If Terra del Fuego lay 
at the mouth of the La Plata River, it would have become 
a valuable auxiliary to Brazil. The worth of an island 
is relative, not absolute. 

The Antilles group is the great insular formation con- 
tiguous to Central America. Its area, though comprising 
94,100 square miles, is not one-tenth as great as that of 
the great Sunda group. By situation and physical condi- 
tions, it is much more closely connected with North than 
with South America. The Caribbean Sea is twice as large 
as the Mediterranean, theone having 801,800 square miles, 
and the other 1,615,800 square miles. It has been, there- 
fore, more difficult to make the larger tributary to the 
advance of civilization than the smaller. 

North America has entirely taken the palm from South 
America in the progress of its culture, just as has uni- 
formly been the case with all the continents of the north- 
ern hemisphere compared with the southern ; and yet 
the tropical southern continent is far more profusely en- 
dowed with the gifts of nature than the temperate north- 
ern one. The northern half, on the other hand, enjoys a 
far greater advantage in its broken coast-line, numerous 
bays, gulfs, islands, peninsulas, harbors, as well as by rea- 
son of its greater want of conformity to a rigid triangular 
form. 

Enlarging, as it does, toward its southern extremity, 
North America approaches a trapezoidal shape, like Asia, 
and, as in Asia also, the size of the main body preponde- 



216 COMPAKATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

rates greatly over that of the extremities. Several of 
these extremities, too, extend toward the east and south, 
and only a few toward the west. To the North American 
peninsulas and islands belong the northeasterly island 
group of Greenland, (which for centuries was considered 
to be a peninsula, but which, since Parry's discoveries in 
1820, has been known to be a group of independent islands,) 
Bank's Land, Boothia Felix, Cockburn, Melville's Benin-' 
sula, Labrador, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Florida, 
the latter 59,000 square miles in area. 

The northeast of North America is everywhere much 
cut up by inlets of the ocean, larger bays, gulfs, and 
sounds. This is the main characteristic of the shore of 
the northern United States and Canada. As all these 
open toward Europe, the situation of this whole region 
has been especially adapted to the most speedy advance 
in civilization. The pride of the American can no more 
plume itself on an independent progress than can that of 
the European ; to the former, Europe is the Orient from 
which he receives, in an already advanced stage, what the 
European receives from Asia, his own Orient. 

The less important peninsulas of North America, and 
the side most destitute of them, are turned toward the 
northern Pacific. To this region belong the Russian pos- 
sessions, the desolate wastes of Aliaska, and, farther to the 
south, the peninsula of Old California, which has begun 
within the last ten years, to play an active part in the 
world's affairs. But all three of these are capable at 
present of little independent advance. They must wait 
till they feel the impulse of the civilization of the older 
American States, before they take that place to which the 
newly-organized commercial relations with China and 
Japan seem to be leading the way. 



THE NEW WORLD. 217 

North America enjoys a great advantage over Europe 
in the possession of large inland lakes or seas. The prev- 
alence of articulation and of the adjacejit islands is not 
toward the south, but toward the polar and sub-polar re- 
gions, (from 40° to 50° N. lat.,) as in Europe. And al- 
though many of these islands and peninsulas are as yet 
but little known, still the progress of discovery has been 
so rapid within the past few years, that it would seem, by 
European analogies, that an important history is yet in 
store for them. For there is a great kinship between 
these northern regions of America and the Scandinavian 
and North Russian domains of Europe. And we know 
well that no degree of cold has ever intimidated civiliza- 
tion from penetrating in the latter to the very confines of 
the polar world. 

As the White Sea, (48,500 square miles in area,) the 
Baltic, (167,000 square miles,) and the yet greater North 
Sea, have broken through the northern regions of Europe, 
so on a far more gigantic scale have the inroads of the 
ocean rifted and sundered North America. This we have 
learned in our recent frequent voyages to the Esquimaux 
regions. Baffin's Bay, Lancaster Sound, Smith's Sound, 
Jones' Sound, Barrow Strait, Fox's Channel with its 
uncounted islands, Hudson's Bay with its 499,000 square 
miles of surface, Boothia Gulf, Yictoria and Georgia Seas, 
"Wellington's Channel, Melville Sound, Prince of Wales 
Straits, and very many other water passages and basins 
divide those northern districts into a vast mesh of islands 
and peninsulas. The superficial area of all these tracts is 
on a colossal scale ; even the Greenland group is estimated 
to include 766,500 square miles. Within the past few 
years this whole Arctic Sea has been the scene of numor* 
T 28 



218 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

ous expeditions of discovery, some of them on a princely 
scal'3. 

All this shows that North America is fashioned much 
more after the analogy of Europe than of South Amer- 
ica. The analogy would be much more close, if North 
America were as favorably affected by climatic conditions 
as Europe. Both continents are washed at the south as 
well as at the north by great inland seas, and divided up by 
them in a manner peculiar to them among all the conti- 
nents. Of this articulation, America, less favored by 
climate, has much the larger share. By its admirable 
harbors, and by the action of the Gulf Stream crossing 
the Atlantic in two directions, America has been spe- 
cially fitted to receive the population and civilization of 
the Old World, and to stand in the closest relations with 
it. In this, united with the arrangement of its mountain 
chains and the happy characteristics of its river systems, 
America bears the palm completely away from Asia. In 
that continent the colossal rivers of the north have no 
connection at their sources with the head-waters of the 
great Chinese, Indian, and West Asiatic rivers. It is en- 
tirely different in North America, where the St. Lawrence, 
Mackenzie, Columbia, Colorado, Mississippi, and Missouri 
flow from the same region, as from a common center, not 
separated at their sources by an immense plateau, but 
forming a single river system, from the mouth of one to 
that of another, flowing in just the contrary direction. 
We find, therefore, that there, as in North Europe, civiliza- 
tion has followed the water-courses, and has planted colo- 
nies as far north as 10° on the coast of Greenland; while 
in Asia human habitations cease with 65° N. lat. 

America seems to be appointed, by its physical condi 
tions, to plant the banner of human progress at the most 



THE NEW WORLD. 219 

northern parts of the globe, and to do for the northern 
hemisphere what Great Britain, through her colonies in 
Tasmania and South Australia, with their admirable 
harbors, is doing for the southern. 

Northern Asia seems to have no future indicated for her 
beyond the sources and upper courses of her great rivers ; 
she seems to depend upon Central Asia and upon Russian 
Europe for all the scanty culture which she may possess. 
In its south and east it seems to have within its Chinese 
and Indian populations the seeds of an independent de- 
velopment, whose results, like those of Arabia, have been 
transferred to Europe to become improved there, and then 
to be given to the world. The form of the three great 
peninsulas, which were the home of Asiatic culture, has 
been repeated in Europe, — but with how great a difference I 
The three European peninsulas are not in the tropical 
zone and near the equator, but are 1400 miles farther 
north. The two groups — the eastern one in South Asia, 
the western one in South Europe — each consisting of three 
peninsulas, are the most valuable auxiliaries the world's 
civilization ever had. Through their agency Asia in the 
torrid zone and Europe in the temperate have become 
what America and Australia are yet to be to the extreme 
north and the extreme south. The former were for the 
past, the latter for the present and the future. South 
America, and yet much more Africa and Australia, seem 
to be held in reserve for the need of a home where the 
civilization of centuries yet to come shall expand into per- 
fection. They now are in their infancy ; the day only begins 
to break in them. Furnished as they have been with 
the most liberal gifts of nature, they must receive a cul- 
ture of which we as yet have little conception. In what 
way this can be done, the history of the past reveals. The 



220 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 

art of navigation has, within the past three centuries, given 
to islands and to continents a new life, and developed re- 
lations unknown till then. The very touch of European 
civilization has already wakened the world to new life ; and 
the oceans, which were once the most impassable of bar- 
riers, have become the closest of bonds to draw the earth 
together, and to further its progress toward the consum- 
mation of all history. 



THE END 



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The International Date Line is represented and defined. 

The System of Surveys of the public land is explained. 

Illustrations. — The New Eclectic Geographies contain a greater number 
of illustrations than the most popular geographies heretofore published, 
and in completeness and appropriateness they are without a rival. 



YM ANTWERP, Wim & gO., Zimmii and Nsw York, 



ECLECTIC EDUCATIONAL SERIES. 

Published by VAN ANTWERP, BRAGG & CO., Cincinnati and New York. 

ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



HARVEY'S LANGUAGE COURSE. 

By Thomas W. Harvey, A. M. 

HARVEY'S REVISED ELEMENTARY GRAMMAR AND 

COMPOSITION. l2mo., cloth, i6o pp. 
HARVEY'S REVISED ENGLISH GRAMMAR, i2mo., half 

roan, 264 pp. 

A practical course in Oral and Written Language Lessons, Com- 
position and English Grammar. The Golden Mean between the too 
labored attempt at simplification, and thescientific technical gram- 
mar. 

HOLBROOK'S NORMAL SERIES. 

By A. HoLBROOK, Principal National Normal Ufiiversity. 

HOLBROOK'S TRAINING LESSONS, i2mo., 135 pp. 
HOLBROOK'S COMPLETE ENGLISH GRAMMAR, i2mo., 
cloth, 204 pp. 

PINNEO'S GUIDE TO COMPOSITION. 

A Series of Practical Lessons designed to simplify the Art of Writing Composition, 
By T. S. PiNNEO, A. M., M. D. i2mo, cloth, 162 pp. Designed for those who desire 
a concise but comprehensive course of Instruction in Composition. 

PINNEO'S EXERCISES IN FALSE SYNTAX. 

i2mo., 104 pp. Systematically arranged; contains, also, promiscuous examples of 
correct and incorrect syntax. 

PINNEO'S EXERCISES IN PARSING AND ANALYSIS. 

i2mo., i2o pp. A brief review of the leading principles of Grammar, conveniently 
arranged for reference ; followed by a well-arranged series of selections from the best 
authors, with explanatory notes and references. 

^VILLIAMS'S PARSER'S MANUAL 

The Parser's Manual, embracing classified examples in nearly every variety of 
English construction. By John Williams, A. M. i2mo., cloth, 264 pp. 

OBJECT LESSONS AND COMPOSITION. 

Things Taught : Sy.^tematic Instruction in Composition and Object Lessons. By 
Dr. M. E. LiLiENTHAL and Robt. Allyn, M. A. Prepared by order of the Cin- 
cinnati School Board. i6mo., 96 pp. 

LANGUAGE EXERCISES. 

For Primary Classses. By J. MiCKLEBOROUGH, Prin. Cincinnati Normal School, 
and C. C. Long, Prin. 20th District School, Cincinnati. 

Part I. For First and Second Reader classes, izmo., 48 pp. 

Part II. For Third and Fourth Reader classes, i2mo., 96 pp. 

Teacher's Edition, i2mo., 187 pp. Contains Parts I and II ; Course of Study in 
Language Lessons for Cincinnati Schools; plans for developing the Exercises :ind 
methods for presenting them ; and much valuable information and many suggestive 
hints for the successful teaching of Language. 

These Exercises follow the Language Course lately adopted by the Cincinnati Peda- 
gogical Association. 



Ray's Kew Arithmetics # Algebras. 

Practical Utility combined with Scientific Accuracy, the 
Best Methods with all real Improvements. 



Hay*® ]^e-w Primary Aritiimetic, 
Ray's Ke-w Intellectual AritlimetiCt 
Ray's Ne-w^ Practical Aritlitmetic, 

Ray's Neuv Miglier Aritlissietic. 

TWO-BOOK SERIES: 
Ray's Ne-w Elementary Aritlimetic, 
Ray's l^ie-w Practical Aritliiiietic. 



Ray's Ne-w Elementary Alg:el>ra, 
Ray's PJe-w Higher Algebra. 



Ray's r^e^w Test Examples in Aritlimetic» 
Ray's Test Problems in Algebra. 



I. The analytic solutions and written qperations have beea 
carefully separated. 

II. All obsolete tables of weights and measures and all 
obsolete denominations are discarded. 

III. The Metric System of Weights and Measures is pre- 
sented in accordance with its now widely extended usage, and 
is assigned to its proper place, immediately after Decimals. 

IV. The subject of Percentage is much expanded, and its 
numerous applications systematized. Many novel and inter- 
esting features are introduced for the first time in a work of 
this character. 

V. Interest, Discount and Business Methods have received 
the careful attention which their importance demands. 

VI. Much space is devoted to commercial calculations in- 
cident to the new forms of Government Bonds and other 
Securities, Coins, etc. 

VII. The typography is new and beautiful, and the binding 
tasteful and substantial. 



VAN ANTWERP. BRAGS & GO., GINGINNATI & NEW YORK, 

Publishers qf the Eclectic Educational Series. 



ECLECTIC EDUCATIONAL SERIES. 

NewEglectic Penmanship, 



n~HE simplest, most legible, and busi7iess-like style of Capitals arid Small 
Letters is adopted. In the Copy-Books each letter is given separately at 
first, atid then in combiiiation ; the spacing is open ; analysis simple, and 
indicated in every letter when first prese?ited ; explanations clear, concise, 
and complete are given on the covers of the books, a?id not over and around 
the copies. 

NEW ECLECTIC COPY-BOOKS.— Revised and Re-engraved. 

No's I, 2, 3, 4, s Boys, 5 Girls, 6 Boys, 6 Girls, 6)4, 7, 8 Boys, 8 Girls, and 
No. 9. Girls' Copy-Books identical, word for word, with the Boys' , but 
in smaller hand-writing. First-class paper, engraving, and ruHng. 

ECLECTIC ELEP/IENTARY COURSE. 

The Elementary course comprises three books, smaller than the Copy- 
Books, but the same in form. No's i and 2 are Tracing-Books. 

ECLECTIC PRIMARr COPY-BOOK. 
A complete Primary Penmanship, designed for use during the second year 
of school life. It contains all the small letters, figures and capitals, each 
given separately and of large size, the object being to teach the form of 
the letter. It is designed to be written with the lead-pencil. Furnished 
either in white or manilla paper. 

ECLECTIC EXERCISE-BOOK. 

Contains a variety of exercises especially designed to develop the differ- 
ent movements, and so arranged as to give as much or as little practice 
on each exercise as may be desired. It is a little larger than the Copy- 
Books, and has a strong cover, so that the latter may be placed within it, 
thus making it convenient to keep the two together. 

THE ECLECTIC PRACTICE-BOOK 

Is made of the same size and weight of paper as the Copy-Books, ruled with 
double lines for No's i, 2, 3, 4, and with single lines for the higher numbers. 
NEW HAND-BOOK OF ECLECTIC PENMANSHIP. 

A Key to the Eclectic System of Penmanship. A complete description 
and analysis of movement and of the letters, and a brief summary of what 
is required in teaching penmanship. 

ECLECTIC WRITING-CARDS. 

72 No's on 36 Cards. One Letter or Principle on each Card: Capital 
Letter on one side, Small Letter on the reverse. Each illustration accom- 
panied with appropriate explanations and instructions. Size of Cards, 
9x13 inches; loop attached for suspending on the walls. 
SAMPLE BOOK OF ECLECTIC PENMANSHIP. 

Containing nearly 200 copies selected from all the Copy-Books in the 
Series. Will be sent by mail for 15 c. to any teacher or school officer desir- 
ing to examine it with a view to introducing the Eclectic Penmanship. 

ECLECTIC PENS. 

School Pen, No. 100, 90 c. per gross; small box (2 doz.), 25 c. Com- 
mercial Pen, No. 200, 90 c. per gross. Ladies' Pen, No. 300, 90 c. 
per gross. Free Writing' Pen, No. 400, 90 c. per gross. Sample Card 
of Eclectic Pens, 10 c. 



YAH ANTWERP, BRAGG & CO., PuWishers, Cincinnati. 



Eclectic Educational Series. 



POLITICAL ECONOMY. 



ANDREWS'S MANUAL OF THE CONSTITUTION. 

Manual of the Constitution of the United States. De- 
signed for the Instruction of American Youth in the Du- 
ties, Obligations and Rights of Citizenship. By Israel 
Ward Andrews, D. D. , President of Alarietta College. 
i2mo, cloth, 408 pp. 

While the primary object has been to provide a suitable text-book, 
a conviction that a knowledge of our government can not be too v^fidely 
diffused, and that large numbers woxild welcome a good book on this 
subject, has led to the attempt to make this volume a manual adapted 
for consultation and reference, as well for citizens at large as for stu- 
dents. With this end in view the work embodies that kind of informa- 
tion on the various topics which an intelligent citizen would desire to 
possess. 

GREGORYS POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

A New Political Economy. By John M. Gregory, 
LL.D., late President III. Industrial University. i2mo, 
393 PP- 

An essentially new statement of the facts and principles of Political 
Economy, in the following particulars : 

1. The clear recognition of the three great economic facts of Wants, 
Work and Wealth, as the principal and constant factors of the indus- 
tries, and as constituting, therefore, the field of Economic Science. 

2. The recognition of man and of the two great crystallizations of 
man into society and into states, as presenting three distinct fields of 
Economic Science, each having its own set of problems, and each its 
own species of quantities or factors, to be taken into account in the 
solution of problems. 

3. A new definition and description of Value as made up of its three 
essential and ever-present factors forming the triangle of Value, and 
evidenced by the clear explanation they afford of the various fluctua- 
tions of prices. 

4. The new division and distribution of the discussion arising out 
of these new fundamental facts and definitions. 

5. The aid rendered to the reader and student by the diagrams and 
synoptical views. 

Van Antwerp, Bragg & Co., Publishers^ 

CIKCIKNATI and NEW YORK. 



Harvey s Language Course. 

REVISED, TWO BOOK SERIES. 



§. Harvey's Revised Element:^?/ Grammar and Composition. 
II. Harvey's Revised English Grammar. 



Xbe best and most practical course in Oral and 
''Written I^anguage I«essons, Composition, and Hng:- 
llsli Grammar. Tlie Golden mean bet-ween tbe too 
labored attempt at simplification, and tbe scientific 
tecbnical grammar. 

" A thorough knowledge of the elements, forms, structure, and laws 
of our mother-tongue can only be acquired by patient, persistent 
exercise in the analysis and synthesis of words, phrases, and sen- 
tences. The labor necessary for the acquirement of this knowledge, 
as well as accuracy and facility in the use of our language, may be 
made attractive, but it can not be dispensed with." 

Mis claimed for Harvey's Language Course that it shows how this labor 
should be expended to secure the best results. 

t. Necessary instruction is given in simple yet concise 
Sonn, thus economizing the time and energies of both pupil and 
teacher. 

2. Model Oral Lessons, which first appeared as a special 
feature in HARVEY'S ELEMENTARY GRAMMAR, and 
have proven so popular, are here presented in an improved and 
suggestive form. 

3. Sentence-making and Composition are presented in a 
natural and attractive manner. 

4. Pictorial Illustrations are employed in teaching Com- 
position. 

5. Special attention is given to exercises in False Syntax, 
care being taken to include the common errors of speech. 

6. Diagrams for "mapping" sentences are given early in 
the course, with Models for Analysis. 

7. The higher book contains an exhaustive presentation 
of the properties and modifications of the different Parts of 
Speech; also carefully prepared Models for Parsing and An- 
alysis; rules of Syntax and schemes for the description of 
objects. 

VAN ANTWERP, BRABQ & CO., Publishers, GINGiNNAIi and NEW YORK. 



Eeleetie Educational Series. 



Composition, Rhetoric, Literature. 



Hepburn's Rhetoric. 

Manual of English Ehetoric, by A. D. Hepburn, Davidson College, 
N. C. The principles and rules of pure English Rhetoric stated 
briefly and exemplified. Adapted to instruction by sections or by 
topics. 12mo, 288 pp. 

"Hepburn's Rhetoric lias the merits of being thorough, orderly, and fresh 
in its treatment of the subject, as well as clear and pure in style."— Proj<'. 
Moses Coit Tylee, Univ'y of Mich. 

Pinneo's Guide to Composition. 

Improved Edition. 250 carefully graded lessons, designed to simplify 
the art of writing Composition. Also, full instruction on the use of 
capital letters, punctuation marks, etc. By T. S. PiNNEO, A. M., M. D., 
author of Primary and Ancdytical Grammars, etc. 12mo, cloth, 162 pp. 

Smith's Studies in English Literature. 

12mo., cloth, 427 pp. Illustrated. Studies in English Literature, 
including Selections from the Five Great Classics, — Chaucer, Spenser, 
Shakespeare, Bacon, and Milton, — and a History of English Litera- 
ture from the Earliest Times to the death of Dryden in 1700. By M. 
W. Smith, A. M., Hughes High School, Cijuiinnati, 0. 

Pinneo's Exercises in False Syntax. 

Systematically arranged ; also, promiscuous examples of correct and 
incorrect syntax. 12mo, 104 pp. 

Pinneo's Exercises in Parsing and Analysis. 

A brief review of the leading principles of Grammar, conveniently 
arranged for reference; followed by a well-arranged series of selections 
from the best authors, with explanatory notes and references. 12mo, 
120 pp. 

Williams's Parser's Manual. 

Embracing classified examples in nearly every variety of English 
£!onstruction. By John Williams, A. M. 12mo., clotli, 264 pp. 



Published, by 

Van Antwerp, Bragg & Co., Cincinnati and New York. 



JUST PUBLISHED. 



2 — .OF- — S 

lUfflyiN^fiNATOCDY 

2— AND— S 

PHYSIOLOGY. 

BY 

Dr. Andrew Wilson, F.R.S.E. 

■<^ .10— t^— tcjoo— ^«-.0m ^^— 

I. The Skeleton, Muscular System, Digestive Organs, etc. 
11. The Organs of Digestion, Circulation and Excretion. 
IK. The Nervous System and Organs of Sense. 

Size, 54x46. Price, $15. OO per Set. 

These beautiful charts, brilb'antly colored to life, are of 
such large size that each detail is clearly shown. Drawn by 
an eminent anatomist, their accuracy can be relied on. 

The price is put so low that every school-room above the 
primary grade should contain a set. 

They are mounted on heavy canvass, the surface varnished, 
and an unusually substantial roller and stick supplied. 

These charts will be be expressed prepaid to any office in 
the United States on receipt of the price named. 

PUBLISHED BY 

VAN ANTWERP, BRAGG & CO. 

CINCINNATI, O. 



Fm. 229 oOM. n-'^- 



